Combine multiple Hard drives into a single one with Windows 10 storage spaces
Why combining hard drives with storage spaces? Ok, I will admit it, I am a modern digital hamster when it comes to digital goods. I like to collect stuff and more than anything else I like to have all of that at the tip of my fingers. And how digital goods grow in size themselves (movies on Blu-ray are like 50GB each) and the collection grows in size single hard drive is starting to be completely obsolete when it comes to storage.
Sometimes we will need large storage for these kinds of personal collections, sometimes we will need it for work reasons. Whatever your reason might be Windows 10 is offering us a solution via Storage spaces.
Storage spaces is an integral part of Windows and it is meant as a tool to provide you with a RAID environment without a RAID controller. Of course, combining multiple hard drives via storage paces instead of RAID will not be so fast or stable but for home use of storing a large quantity of data is perfectly enough.
With Storage Spaces you will also have an option to reduce some space for increased security of data loss if by any chance one of your HDD fails.
How to Create a Storage Space
To create storage space in Windows, press ⊞ WINDOWS + R to open the run dialog.
In the run box type in Control Panel and press ENTER
In Control Panel find Storage Spaces and left-click on it.
Once storage spaces open, left-click on Create a new pool and storage space
Once you click on create new, you will be greeted with a list of hard drives you can use for this operation.
Please note that all hard drives you choose will be completely erased and formatted and then assign a single drive letter. Click on Create pool.
You will find yourself in new storage options where you can assign a drive letter, give storage space a name, etc.
Storage spaces types
One thing I would like to focus on here is resiliency type, when you expand the resiliency type drop-down menu you will see 4 options inside. Simple, Two-way mirror, Three-way mirrors, and Parity.
Simple: If you choose Simple as an option, you will have maximum hard drive space but no resiliency at all, meaning that if by any chance any of your hard drives malfunction, you are losing your data from that drive completely.
Two-way mirror: This option will save your data if one of your drives fails but you need at least 2 drives and storage space will be limited since some of it will be a safe backup option for the case of a drive failure. However if one of your drives fails, you can replace it in a second and keep on working as nothing happened.
Three-way mirror: This option similar to the previous one will offer you safe data-keeping from a hard drive failure. this option will save your data even if 2 hard drives malfunction but it will require having 5 of them connected in order to be able to choose this option.
Parity: Maybe the most popular option among people who want to have 2 or 3 drives merged but do not want to lose too much space of the two-way mirror option. It offers some protection and it does not take so much space as two-way does, let us say it is a kind of win-win situation.
Conclusion
I personally go for simple and have an important backup on optical drives but only for reason I could use more space, know that this way is requiring from me to always have a backup in optical media and that I will need to restore all of it back if even one HDD fails which could take time. But if this way is ok with you, go for it, you will have more space to use.
Congratulations, you have just set Storage spaces in Windows 10 all by yourself. If you would like to read more helpful articles and tips about various software and hardware visit errortools.com daily.
Now that’s how you set Storage spaces in Windows 10 on a computer. On the other hand, if your computer is going through some system-related issues that have to get fixed, there is a one-click solution known as Restoro you could check out to resolve them.
This program is a useful tool that could repair corrupted registries and optimize your PC’s overall performance. Aside from that, it also cleans out your computer for any junk or corrupted files that help you eliminate any unwanted files from your system. This is basically a solution that’s within your grasp with just a click. It’s easy to use as it is user-friendly. For a complete set of instructions in downloading and using it, refer to the steps below
Perform a full system scan using Restoro. To do so, follow the instructions below.
