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virtually merge multiple drives??

P

paradoxblue

Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2006
Messages
591
I have a number of raided drives in my system.

3 to be exact.

I have data on all 3 raids.

1 is 2x1tb
1 is 4x500gb
1 is 2x750gb

I do not want to raid these all togethor. but I have been searching everywhere for a way. to make a new fake drive of sorts? that will show everything on the other drives as one drive?

i do not want to raid, jbod drive pool etc. i jsut waant to create a new drive that will show all data on one.

has anyone seen software to do this?
 
I think there is a FUSE filesystem that does this. You are using windows though, right?
 
ummm well what you could do if you using windows is mount the drives in an empty NTFS folder

So your boot volume will be the main volume.

And then make two Folders named "raid2" and "raid3" on the C:\ drive

Go to disk management and right click on the respective volumes and choose change drive letters and path....here you can mount the drive to an empty NTFS folder(the folder you just made)
 
yes but inserting the drives as folders doesnt make everthing in one drive.

which is what i am after. i just mounts the drives as a folder


Yes I am using Windows XP sp3 pro
 
mounting in NTFS folders is the best you are gonna get unless you physicall reduce it to one array. JBODing the drives in windows might work, but I have no experience with that and Im pretty sure its totally UNfault tolerant anyway.

Consolidate at 1TB drives or NTFS mount.
 
I want the same thing. There was supposed to be something called Virtual Folders coming out to do this, wasn't' there?
 
Danny Bui said:
Just Windows Home Server, Linux LVM, and JBOD (Windows) setups. Which happen to be all of ways you don't want to go through/with.
Click to expand...

as far as i can te;; server can not do this.
jbod is not wha ti want as it plops all my data on all drive. leaving me open to major loss.
 
You can use symlinks to remap all the directories to one spot. Different from mounting a drive as a folder since you can put all the directories from the other drives in the root directory of your main drive instead of in a folder.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Code: 
c:\ <root>
      | directories

d:\ <root>
     | directories
     | test2

So at the command prompt on c drive, you could type "junction test1 d:\test2" and there would now be a c:\test1 with all the files in d:\test2.
 
Igthorn said:
You can use symlinks to remap all the directories to one spot. Different from mounting a drive as a folder since you can put all the directories from the other drives in the root directory of your main drive instead of in a folder.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Code: 
c:\ <root>
      | directories

d:\ <root>
     | directories
     | test2

So at the command prompt on c drive, you could type "junction test1 d:\test2" and there would now be a c:\test1 with all the files in d:\test2.
Click to expand...

Again that is still a sub folder

I guess i need to offer a few more details

I archive all my Dvd's to hdd space now. numbering in the 100's
I need to see ALL files as one drive. so I can easily see what i have etc.

having a folder inside a folder defeats the purpose of what I am trying to achieve.

Paradox.
 
OIC....well sounds like you need to build yourself a WHS
 
true

well i still dont see what windows home server can offer me over xp? i can upgrade if needed.

i just find it hard to beieve with stuff like daemon tools etc. no one has made a program for this yet.


Par.
 
well usually you would break it down by letter of the title, OR, you would create one big array, or seperate by media (DVDs, HDs, music, TV, for example. But your situation is pretty strange to begin with.
 
well i have a lot of data.

breaking a drive by letter makes sense. maybe. but what happens when i run out of room for say litter T... do i then ad a T2 drive?

i do hope to build a rather large array using the norco 204 eventually. maybe next summer. but fo rnow I would jus tlike to have all my media appear as one drive.

a *.* search of all the drives would give me a good view. but how would one mount those results into a viewable folder?
 
paradoxblue said:
true

well i still dont see what windows home server can offer me over xp? i can upgrade if needed.

i just find it hard to beieve with stuff like daemon tools etc. no one has made a program for this yet.
Click to expand...

Have you read up on the drive pooling feature of Windows Home Server? It pretty does exactly what you're asking for: Merging multiple drives of different sizes to appear as one drive. If its a critical folder or file, just turn on duplication and it will make sure that there is a backup of that critical folder/file.

However, this drive pooling will wipe out all data on those drives.

And people have made software like that. Its just that it involves other OSes or are the ways that you refuse to use.
 
Danny Bui said:
Have you read up on the drive pooling feature of Windows Home Server? It pretty does exactly what you're asking for: Merging multiple drives of different sizes to appear as one drive. If its a critical folder or file, just turn on duplication and it will make sure that there is a backup of that critical folder/file.

However, this drive pooling will wipe out all data on those drives.
Click to expand...

All you have to do is take one blank drive to install to copy some data until you have another free drive add it in. copy more data...add a drive...copy data...add a drive you get the idea...but you can do it without compromising your data
 
nitrobass24 said:
All you have to do is take one blank drive to install to copy some data until you have another free drive add it in. copy more data...add a drive...copy data...add a drive you get the idea...but you can do it without compromising your data
Click to expand...

are you saying i can do it without compromising?

i have read about drive pooling. but does it not work like jbod? spreads my data?

I realize the set is expandable.. hmm.
 
Tolyngee said:
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

Could this help?
Click to expand...

hmm that does seem plossible. but looks a lot like a fancy shortcut?

I'm still interested in this WHS thing.. so. if I create a drive pool. when I add a drive does it say

I add 2 drives. it filles drive 1 and then begins on drive 2. I add drive three. but it finished filling 2 then fills 3?


or does it spread all over same as a jbod? but with expansion? i.e. I lose one drive. i lose all my data?
 
paradoxblue said:
I'm still interested in this WHS thing.. so. if I create a drive pool. when I add a drive does it say

I add 2 drives. it filles drive 1 and then begins on drive 2. I add drive three. but it finished filling 2 then fills 3?


or does it spread all over same as a jbod? but with expansion? i.e. I lose one drive. i lose all my data?
Click to expand...



Yep. It fills each drive up drive by drive, think of a bucket on stairs approach, when one overfills, it moves to the next one.

If you lost one drive, you only lost the data that was contained on that drive (assuming you didn't use folder duplication). If you used folder duplication, the system will scatter your files to two drives (same file in two locations), so if you lost a drive, you didn't lose anything. The nice thing about folder duplication is that you can make it be folder specfic, like lets say "family pictures" can be set on folder duplication because they are things you don't want to lose.... and you can say put "movies" in non duplicaed directories to maximize space.
 
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