4TB of space

By portauthority
in Hardware Hangout

 Share

Recommended Posts

Experienced

portauthority

Posted
Posted

Hello folks,

What is the best way to combine 4x1TB hard drives and make it show up as one drive? Only thing I can think out of my head is RAID 0 but reliability is an issue apparently.

P.S. I have a 5th 1TB hard drive used as backup, more will be purchased as I download more stuff obviously... backup isn't an issue here but reliability is.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/
Share on other sites
Grand Master

CPressland

Posted
Posted
Use the 5 drives in RAID 5, that should give you 4TB of redundant storage. That way all of it is protected pretty good and can withstand any one drive failing.

Humour me as I've never understood RAID5, If this guy has 5x1TB then how is a RAID5 going to save him if a single random hard drive fails? What dictates what gets mirrored onto the fifth drive?

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590168170
Share on other sites
Grand Master

CPressland

Posted
Posted
with RAID5, the parity is split across all the disks in the array, there isn't a 'parity disk'. Not sure how it works exactly but RAID5 is the way to go

Thats confusing... I may have to rip apart an old PC, shove four 120GB hard drives in RAID 5 into it and see what happens when I damage one of the hard drives :p

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590168230
Share on other sites
Grand Master

capr

Posted
Posted
Just use JBOD or WHS or something, additionally RAID isn't a backup solution, it's an uptime solution.

yepp... I would say just have the 4 drives run in raid zero this would give you huge performance gain but you would only have 1 tb of space to work with. plus side to that is you can easily do daily backups of that 1tb onto your 5th drive.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590169016
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Smigit

Posted
Posted

Is the 4TB partition to be used as a primary partition for an OS or a secondary one?

Thought I'd ask since I don't believe Windows supports boot drives of greater than 2TB unless you make use of EFI which I'm not sure is particularly common on motherboards yet.

I could be wrong, but when I was looking at larger partitions earlier in the year 2TB came off as a barrier at the time for a primary boot partition.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590169036
Share on other sites
Mentor

Odom Member

Posted
  • Member
Posted

JBOD puts different sized HDD's into a single volume. The way the data is spread on all the drives depends on the host controller. It is however very unlikely that the data will be written sequencially, which would mean, that if you loose one disk, you're very likely to loose it all, just like with RAID0.

If you want reliability, which one do you want? Hardware or data?

For hardware, you can go with a RAID5. With 4x1TB drives in RAID5, you wil have 3TB to use. If any drive fails, your data is still there and accessible, until you manage to replace the failed drive with another one.

For software reliability, in case there is data corruption, the only thing that helps is to back up a volume to another volume. RAID for this is useless, as any data corruption would instantly be mirrored across all drives.

You could go with 2 RAID0 of 2TB each. Set up periodic backups from one RAID to the other. If you have data corruption on the main RAID0 array, just restore the data from your backup on the 2nd array. If a drive fails in any RAID0 array, you 'll loose the array, but you will have the latest backup from the other array.

I also wouldn't recommend doing this on a motherboard controller. Either get a NAS or a dedicated RAID controller. This will add significant overhead to your motherboard and my experience with motherboard RAID setups isn't the best.

You can read up on RAID here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590169342
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Japlabot

Posted
Posted
Thats confusing... I may have to rip apart an old PC, shove four 120GB hard drives in RAID 5 into it and see what happens when I damage one of the hard drives :p

You don't need to damage anything, just disconnect one of the drives as if had failed.

yepp... I would say just have the 4 drives run in raid zero this would give you huge performance gain but you would only have 1 tb of space to work with. plus side to that is you can easily do daily backups of that 1tb onto your 5th drive.

if you had the drives in RAID0, you will still get the full 4TB, the bits will just be striped across all of the drives.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590169392
Share on other sites
Grand Master

gwai lo

Posted
Posted
JBOD puts different sized HDD's into a single volume. The way the data is spread on all the drives depends on the host controller. It is however very unlikely that the data will be written sequencially, which would mean, that if you loose one disk, you're very likely to loose it all, just like with RAID0.

True enough, I'd definitely go with WHS then.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590169654
Share on other sites
Experienced

portauthority

Posted
  • Author
Posted

There will be a boot partition of about 40GB and then the rest will be storage space. I guess I need GPT partitions still?

As much as I'd like to get a hardware RAID controller nothing fits my budget. The Dell PERC 5 RAID controller came up as a good alternative but it's got all kinds of bugs with Intel motherboards, and I'm not even sure my mobo allows non-video card devices in the PCIe x16 slot (I have the Intel DQ35JO motherboard)

I may have to sacrifice 1TB and go with the 3x1TB RAID5 solution ... thanks guys. 5th will be used for actual backups.

P.S. WHS sounds nice, but I already have a seperate device acting as a domain controller.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590170440
Share on other sites
Grand Master

fix-this!

Posted
Posted
Hello folks,

What is the best way to combine 4x1TB hard drives and make it show up as one drive? Only thing I can think out of my head is RAID 0 but reliability is an issue apparently.

P.S. I have a 5th 1TB hard drive used as backup, more will be purchased as I download more stuff obviously... backup isn't an issue here but reliability is.

silly question but why the need for soo much hdd space ?

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590170720
Share on other sites
Grand Master

aussiefloyd_fan

Posted
Posted
But damaging it would also be a stress release ;)

just mail it to me..... my sad has the computer illiterate-ness to completly destroy data on a computer in less than 30 seconds when a reboot happens on a pc........ plus you can be sure that a charity company can put the drive to good use

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/700644-4tb-of-space/#findComment-590171108
Share on other sites
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Sysinternals Suite 2026.17.06

      By Copernic · Posted

      Sysinternals Suite 2026.17.06 by Razvan Serea The Sysinternals Suite is a comprehensive package of advanced Windows utilities created by Mark Russinovich, who launched the Sysinternals website in 1996 to share his system tools and technical resources. This suite combines a wide range of troubleshooting and diagnostic tools, including Process Explorer, Process Monitor, Sysmon, Autoruns, ProcDump, the PsTools collection, and many others. It provides everything IT professionals and developers need to manage, monitor, and troubleshoot Windows systems and applications. The Suite bundles all of the core troubleshooting utilities along with their help files. Non-troubleshooting extras—such as the BSOD Screen Saver or NotMyFault—are excluded. In addition to the well-known tools, it also includes AccessChk, Autologon, Ctrl2Cap, DiskView, Disk Usage (DU), LogonSessions, PageDefrag, PsLogList, PsPasswd, RegMon, RootkitRevealer, TCPView, VMMap, ZoomIt, and more. Sysinternals Suite 2026.17.06 changelog: Autoruns v14.3 - This update to Autoruns, a utility for monitoring startup items, adds bug fixes and improves the command-line application autorunsc. ZoomIt v12.1 - This update to ZoomIt, a screen magnification and annotation tool, adds image backgrounds, webcam background blur and microphone noise cancellation support. Coreinfo v4.01 - This update to Coreinfo, a tool that reports processor, socket, NUMA memory, and cache topology of a system, as well as processor features supported, adds support for new processor features. DebugView v5.02 - This update to DebugView, a tool for displaying both kernel-mode and Win32 debug output, adds Ctrl-Shift-A support for selecting all output, and agent skills support for the CLI utility. LiveKd v5.64 - This update to LiveKd, a utility that allows running the kernel debugger on a live system, fixes a debugging privileges issue. ProcDump 3.5.2 for Linux - This update to ProcDump for Linux, a tool for capturing process dumps, adds .NET counters and a custom core dumper. Process Monitor v4.04 - This update to Process Monitor, a utility for observing real-time file system, Registry, and process or thread activity, adds some bug fixes Sysmon v15.21 - This update to Sysmon, an advanced host security monitoring tool, adds some bug fixes. Download: Sysinternals Suite 2026.17.06 | 168.0 MB (Freeware) Download: Sysinternals Suite for ARM64 | 15.4 MB Link: Sysinternals Suite Home Page | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Classic 7 is Windows 10 LTSC cosplaying as Windows 7

      By Ixion · Posted

      Given only Volume license customers and specific resellers can obtain the LTSC versions legitimately it seems likely that this has been tinkered with quite a lot!
    • Apple CEO Tim Cook confirms looming price hikes due to memory shortages

      By Hamid Ganji · Posted

      Apple CEO Tim Cook confirms looming price hikes due to memory shortages by Hamid Ganji Image via Apple Memory and chip shortages have led to significant price increases for electronics over the past year, and it seems that more hikes are on the way for upcoming smartphones and computers. Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that the company is planning to increase the prices of some of its products due to the ongoing memory and storage shortages. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook confirmed the looming price hikes for Apple’s future products, adding that “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable.” He also said the company is doing its best to “mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.” The Apple CEO also noted that the allocation of a large portion of memory chips to AI companies has contributed to shortages in the market, resulting in lower supply at a time when demand for devices remains high. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line,” Cook said. Cook also added that Apple is ready to use its vast cash reserves to help boost supply in the market because additional production capacity is needed. While he declined to specify how Apple plans to do that, he said the company will not build its own memory and storage factories despite its financial resources and silicon expertise. Cook did not provide further details on the scale of the price increases or which Apple products would be affected, though iPads and Macs could see higher prices sooner than other products. Apple’s next product launch event is scheduled for September, when the company is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and its first foldable iPhone. It remains unclear whether the upcoming iPhones will be affected by the price increases, but given the current memory shortage, higher prices seem increasingly likely. There is currently no clear timeline for the end of the memory shortage. Samsung, one of the world’s three largest memory chip manufacturers, recently said the shortage could persist for several more years.
    • Samsung is shutting down yet another app used by millions

      By AgusL · Posted

      Downloads does not equal actual usage, even less when the app is pre-installed in some Galaxy phones.
    • Mozilla highlights Firefox Nova 2026 redesign and more upcoming features with new roadmap

      By AgusL · Posted

      +1000 to this, don't understand why they added that margin around the top bar, even the close button is a PITA to click without aiming. Ofc, this is just preview and hopefully they will revert such odd UX decision before hitting final version.

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      eurospharma62 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      With What earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      Harris Gilbert earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Vincian earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      Jocimo earned a badge
      First Post

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      542
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      167
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      85
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      64
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      64
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!