Joining multiple drives together

Phil2008

Phil2008

Phil2008

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2004
Posts
8,732
Hi guys, now my 4tb media drive is almost full and I normally swap the drive for a larger drive. But how safe would it be to join 2x 4tb drives together using the windows spanning, striped or JBOD method?

Basically what method would be the safest to use, if any are safe that is and would I have to delete/format the data from my media drive before joining the drives.
 
Take a look at Drivebender or Drivepool. I use Drivebender and its great.

Don't use Windows Storage Spaces - any kind of failure with Storage Spaces usually results in the loss of all of the data on all disks. At least that's been my experience.
 
Buffalo2102 said:
Take a look at Drivebender or Drivepool. I use Drivebender and its great.

Don't use Windows Storage Spaces - any kind of failure with Storage Spaces usually results in the loss of all of the data on all disks. At least that's been my experience.
Click to expand...

With Drivebender can I just keep adding drives when they get full, without formatting all the drives when I want to add one?
 
Absolutely. And if one of the drives fails, you don't lose all your data - any data that is on the other disks is still intact.

You should be able to install Drivebender and create a new pool using your existing disk and the new one. You can then ask DB to rebalance the data across the disks, if you want to.

Also, unlike raid etc, if you move your disks to a new machine, all you have to do is install drivebender and it will automatically detect and set up your pool on the new machine.
 
Phil2008 said:
Hi guys, now my 4tb media drive is almost full and I normally swap the drive for a larger drive. But how safe would it be to join 2x 4tb drives together using the windows spanning, striped or JBOD method?
Click to expand...

Don't do this. If one drive goes pop you lose the lot. That's not a big problem if you have the data backed up, but I'm guessing you don't. So treat yourself to a new HDD, copy everything over, and put the old 4 TB drive in a safe place as your backup.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £458.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​


Better still, treat yourself to a pair and mirror them.
 
Buffalo2102 said:
Absolutely. And if one of the drives fails, you don't lose all your data - any data that is on the other disks is still intact.

You should be able to install Drivebender and create a new pool using your existing disk and the new one. You can then ask DB to rebalance the data across the disks, if you want to.

Also, unlike raid etc, if you move your disks to a new machine, all you have to do is install drivebender and it will automatically detect and set up your pool on the new machine.
Click to expand...

Brillant..lm just thinking this was it might work out cheaper instead of buying a bigger drive every few years. The only downside I will be using more power, but I do make sure they are 5400rpm drives.. I have even had a quick look at the cheapest 2bay Synology box, but people say there not great for using as a plex server and I use "Air Video" and "Servio" servers So all apple and DLNA devices can access my media drive thoughout the house.

Quartz said:
Don't do this. If one drive goes pop you lose the lot. That's not a big problem if you have the data backed up, but I'm guessing you don't. So treat yourself to a new HDD, copy everything over, and put the old 4 TB drive in a safe place as your backup.
Click to expand...

I normally double the size of the hdd each time, so the next hdd would be a 8tb, But buying multiple hdds might be better idea, if Im not going to have endless of trouble making things more complicated... Yes I have just started backing up the media drive using LTO cartridges/tapes
 
I assumed that you had a backup method.

I use DB to pool 2 x 6TB and 1 x 4TB drives together in my desktop PC and that houses my media. I have a similar selection of drives pooled on my server using BTRFS and that has a mirror of the media on it. I also use Serviio as my media server.
 
Quartz said:
Don't do this. If one drive goes pop you lose the lot. That's not a big problem if you have the data backed up, but I'm guessing you don't. So treat yourself to a new HDD, copy everything over, and put the old 4 TB drive in a safe place as your backup.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £458.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​


Better still, treat yourself to a pair and mirror them.
Click to expand...

A treat indeed at 900 quid!
 
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