How to make a big drive...

Cavallino

Cavallino

Cavallino

Soldato
Joined
8 Dec 2004
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Is there anyway to create one big drive of several dozens of TB on the cheap?
Ive got loads of HDs lying around and was wondering how to make use of them.....

Are there any bog standard ways to get them "linked" together in a nas or something?


Cheers folks.
 
Do some reading about RAID, especially RAID5, 6 & 10. Note that drives in a RAID need to be the same (or at least similar) size as anything over the capacity of the smallest drive is wasted.
 
I'd recommend StableBits Drivepool for merging loads of smaller HDD into one large volume, their Scanner software also monitors the drive health, which can be handy when using older drives, giving failure prediction, and when both bits of software are used together it auto offloads recoverable files from failing drives before it does die. Drivepool will also invisibly create multiple copies of user selected important directories or files to prevent losing them if a drive does fail.

I use it to manage 40TB, 47TB and a 72TB volume, from 16x HDDs (4-18tb devices SATA/SAS and USB)
 
If you are going for a Drivepool type setup Id personally avoid the RAID version and go for the standard USB version, it's cheaper and as you're going to be controlling the drives in software as JBOD rather than RAID, it removes a layer of possible problems, for instance, if 1 drive fails in the raid array you could lose the whole array, whereas, as a JBOD if one fails you'd only loose that one's contents at worst... Also with RAID all the drives would have to be the same size, whereas with JBOD and Drivepool, you can have a 2tb, 2x4tb, 10tb and 18tb all together as one large 38tb volume... Just spotted the USB3.1 with daisy chaining, that would be better still, allowing future proofing of being able to add more enclosures without tying up more motherboard USB3 sockets.
 
I personally buy WD Element 18TB drives when they are on offer ~£270 each, I run them still in their stock enclosure for a few weeks when they arrive to check they aren't DOA or have any issues... Then shuck the drives out, which will invalidate the warranty, these drives run cooler than stock enclosure and with no issues in my experience.
 
Depends if you only want use of them
while the pc is turned on
Or if you want a storage device for when pc is off too
Cheapest way ie no cost at all
Populate every sata port/m2 on your motherboard
Use windows storage spaces
It doesn't care if drives are different sizes etc
Unlike some raid setups it doesn't lose size if drives are mismatched
Very reliable and versatile too
I throw all my sata ssds I have laying around into a windows storage space
 
I want the drives to be separate and independent from the PC itself and just to connect them up via USB3.0.
I.e. just to make one big drive consisting of 3 or 4 20TB in that Yottamaster enclosure.
 
Cavallino said:
Are there any enclosures which support USB 3 for these drives?
I saw the 5 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure, Yottamaster Aluminum USB3.0, but it says it only supports up to 18TB?
Click to expand...
It's likely that 18TB was the largest drive available when the enclosure was released and the text just hasn't been updated. This is perfectly normal.
 
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