Partition magic 8 or JBOD - merging 2 disks

Hi

i currently have a SATA 300, 250gb NTFS drive
im going to buy the exactly same hard drive, as im running out of space

will i be able to merge the two with out losing any data on C:/ ?
( C:/ + D:/ = C:/ ? )
so that i only have one hard drive?

i have had a look around and it seems either Partition magic or JBOD ( raid ? )
is how to do it


any help / information would be great

thanks

 

I believe you can, but I'm no RAID expert. Personally, I think striping the drives is a REAL bad idea. If you have a problem with one drive, ALL your data is at risk. IMHO it's best to just install the 2nd drive as an additional drive (drive D: or E: or whatever) and move/store data on it. Just my two cents....

 

I dont really want to stripe it

just merge C:/ and D:/ together so, i only have C:/

i believe it is possible, just looking for best way to do it

 

Striping was wrong the word, and I was thinking striping, What you're after is called "drive mirroring". This is where both drive C: and drive D: have the exact same data. If C: crashes. then D: can be used without any down time or data loss. Striping is where both C: and D: are combined into one larger drive. With striping, if both drives are 160gb, you'd end up with a single 320gb drive. With mirroring, you'd have a single 160gb drive showing in Windows, but the data is simultaneously written to both drives, so if one crashes, the other can step in with no down time or data loss. Mirroring is a good idea if you have important data, but there's no increase in storage space. Striping doubles your storage space, but if one drive fails, you lose all the data from both drives (most of the time; it is possible to rebuild a failed striped RAID, but it isn't easy, and not always successful). There's another type of RAID where data access times are increased by writing the data to both drives and spreading out the load to two drives, but, again, if one crashes, you lose everything. IMO, it's best to just have 2 hard drives, C: and D: as individual drives. You'd double your storage and not have to worry about losing EVERYTHING if one drive should crash. Any increase in data access times would be barely noticeable with a RAID setup, and in my opinion the risk of a catastrophic drive failure and data loss is too high to justify the minor speed increase.

 

Yes, i know what striping and mirroring are..

i want to know how i can merge C:/ and D:/

so i have just C:/

i dont want to stripe or mirror

if that is possible