merging hard drives?

[freak]

I have 3 hard drive and I want to merge them so it acts as one... I've heard u can merge drives but don't know how to go about it... So how would I do this?

[lynx]

There are two possibilities.

You may be talking about having them as a raid array, but you need a raid controller and would have to completely reformat the drives.

The alternative is to have Dynamic Disks/Volumes. For this you need to have Win2k Server or XP. You can convert existing disks to Dynamic Disks, but once converted they can't be changed back, and you can't access them with an other OS than the ones stated above.

If you've got XP I suggest you look up Dynamic Disks in Help & Support for more information before you go down this route. It is a lot of hassle for very little benefit for the home user.

[freak]

hmm maybe I'll just explain the problem... But I'm thinking I may just need to buy a larger HD. I got my PS2 setup with HDLoader and I'm setting it up so I can network it to my old crappy computer and send ps2 games to the hard drive in the ps2. But the hard drive sizes are 2 1gig HDs and one 4gig HD... heres where I run into the problem the games are .rar and compressed to about 2gigs but then I need to uncompress and the files inside will be about 4gig. So the 4gigs plus the 2gig rar just won't work and I see no solution except a slightly larger HD and it can really only run ME anything higher it lags. Plus I think it can only support up to an 8gig HD is there a program that I can use to test the max HD size it can support? Any Idea's or will I just need a larger hard drive

[DanB]

Just get a larger one, they are really cheap atm and always handy to have

[Storm]

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/jbod.htm

but i suggest getting a new HDD....... those small ones will be to much trouble anyway (all need power, and you'll prolly have a major hassle with the PS2 and JBOD)

[Mr. Elmo]

if you have them network like you said, you can extract the files to your 4GB hdd rather than the one that it was saved on.

btw, i think its time for you to upgrade :)

[tesco]

get a bigger hard drive. You can get an 8gb or 10gb for like 20-30 dollars canadian, or a 40gb for like 50-70.

[Mr. Elmo]

are you canadian or american? on price watch you can get some cheap 80gb hdd for like $55 usd

[freak]

No I don't need to upgrade lol its my crap computer and the ps2 thing is the only thing im using it for... Alright I'll just get a new HD but it is a really old computer and I think it has a max HD support of 8gb is there a way I can find out the max it will support like a program

[Mr. Elmo]

i dont think that there are any limitation on how big your hdd is or how many you have...other than the ide ports.

[freak]

i dont think that there are any limitation on how big your hdd is or how many you have...other than the ide ports.

Are u sure? I'm pretty sure old puters have limits... All I know is the 80gb HD in my ps2 won't work in that computer at least I can't seem to get it to work

[lynx]

You can get a boot-time bios loader which overrides your system limitations. You should be able to get it from the drive manufacturer.

Seagate DiscWizard (http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html)
Maxtor Maxblast3 (http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/?epi_menuItemID=3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068&epi_menuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&epi_baseMenuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=57)

I'm sure there are options for other manufacturers, but possibly not from their own sites. If you go for one of those, make sure you've got the utility before you buy the drive.

[freak]

thx for the help guys... guess i'll be getting a new HD