Question Combining an SSD and HDD into one new SSD ?

[teesh]

Alright so I just got a new m.2 ssd in the mail today and set it up but i'm curious about something. Is it possible to combine my 128 gb sata ssd that has windows installed into my 2 tb hdd with most of my games installed into this new 4 tb m.2 ssd I just installed. I'm not sure if I can technically combine those two drives into the m.2, so I just wanted to figure it out. And what is the best way to have all this data only on my m.2 drive.

Here's my situation:
128GB SSD (OS drive/download etc.)
2 TB HDD (data, music, games other big files)
4 TB NVME SSD (nothing in it for now)

My question is if I can merge both my SSD and HDD into the M.2 NVME SSD so it shows up as one in windows?

 

[Lutfij]

Simple answer, no.

 

[CountMike]

Alright so I just got a new m.2 ssd in the mail today and set it up but i'm curious about something. Is it possible to combine my 128 gb sata ssd that has windows installed into my 2 tb hdd with most of my games installed into this new 4 tb m.2 ssd I just installed. I'm not sure if I can technically combine those two drives into the m.2, so I just wanted to figure it out. And what is the best way to have all this data only on my m.2 drive.

Here's my situation:
128GB SSD (OS drive/download etc.)
2 TB HDD (data, music, games other big files)
4 TB NVME SSD (nothing in it for now)

My question is if I can merge both my SSD and HDD into the M.2 NVME SSD so it shows up as one in windows?

Why would you do that at all and slow everything down on too small SATA SSD ? Just partition 4TB NVME for OS, it's 10 times faster than SATA. Get an USB3.1/3.2 adapter for that 128GB SSD to have exceptionally fast portable drive.

 

[SkyNetRising]

My question is if I can merge both my SSD and HDD into the M.2 NVME SSD so it shows up as one in windows?

Combining/merging would not be the correct term. This causes confusion.
Closest thing to combining would be making RAID 0 array. That makes no sense here. Forget about the idea.

You could:
clone contents of old SSD and HDD to new M.2 drive.
And get rid of old SSD and HDD completely or repurpose them for something different.

 

[teesh]

Combining/merging would not be the correct term. This causes confusion.
Closest thing to combining would be making RAID 0 array. That makes no sense here. Forget about the idea.

You could:
clone contents of old SSD and HDD to new M.2 drive.
And get rid of old SSD and HDD completely or repurpose them for something different.

yea reading it back I can see I used the wrong words. What you recommended I do is exactly what I was trying to figure out. What’s the best way to clone those two drives to the M.2? Is there any videos/guides you recommend I follow?

 

[SkyNetRising]

What’s the best way to clone those two drives to the M.2? Is there any videos/guides you recommend I follow?

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management first?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

And what is model name of your motherboard?

Before any further instructions, knowing those things is necessary.

 

[Order 66]

The only thing that comes close to doing what you need, as others have said is RAID0. This makes no sense for 2 reasons. 1: you would be limiting your fast NVMe drive to at the very least SATA SSD speeds or even worse the speed of your HDD. 2: If in RAID 0, one of your drives were to fail, you would lose all the data on all the drives.

 

[teesh]

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management first?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

And what is model name of your motherboard?

Before any further instructions, knowing those things is necessary.

Disk management is right here
and the motherboard is a Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Elite

 

[CountMike]

RAID0 with a 128GB SATA and 4TB NVME drives ?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Disk management is right here
and the motherboard is a Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Elite

Looks good.
OS is installed in UEFI mode.
You could clone bootloader partition, OS partition from 120GB disk and 2TB partition from HDD to new drive.

Problem is, you have already filled 4TB drive with some data.
You'd have to clean it and remove all data from 4TB drive before cloning.
If you're not willing to do that, then cloning is not possible.

 

[teesh]

Looks good.
OS is installed in UEFI mode.
You could clone bootloader partition, OS partition from 120GB disk and 2TB partition from HDD to new drive.

Problem is, you have already filled 4TB drive with some data.
You'd have to clean it and remove all data from 4TB drive before cloning.
If you're not willing to do that, then cloning is not possible.

Yea I just made a backup of all the files and put it on the 4TB, but I'll put that on an external drive no problem. Thanks for the help

 

[SkyNetRising]

Remember - if you decide to proceed with cloning,
first boot from cloned drive has to be done with old drives physically disconnected.
If you fail to follow this, then you'll have to redo cloning.

 

[USAFRet]

OK....2 individual clone operations.

Full clone steps below

Step 1. The C drive to the 4TB
Adjust the size of the resulting C partition to be much more than the default 128GB. Set it to 500GB or so.
This will leave the rest of the drive as empty.

Step 2. The contents of the 2TB to the empty space on the 4TB.

After the Step 1, you MUST disconnect all other drives, and boot from ONLY the 4TB.

Do not reconnect the 128GB old C drive.

Full clone steps:

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[USAFRet]

Last step - Adjust the drive letter of the second partition (that came from the 2TB) to be the same drive letter as the 2TB drive used to be.

In this case, make it the D partition.