Setting up a new HDD

[landsofwinter]

Hello, this is my first time adding a new harddrive in my computer.. so I'm a bit confused about the entire process. I just want to know, what are the steps that I'm going to need to take in order for me to set up a new HDD? I currently have a 1TB one, and will be purchasing a 2TB HDD. I'm not replacing the 1TB, I just want the 2TB HDD to be additional space for my computer to use, not to mirror the first HDD nor to be a backup or anything. I've read that there are different RAID configurations that one should set up, I'm unsure what to use. What is the best way to go about this? Thanks for the help!

 

[ESPclipse]

Do not try to set up a mirror array (or RAID1) with drives of differing capacities, as the maximum capacity of the RAID will be limited to the capacity of the smallest drive. You can try RAID0, if you are feeling adventurous, as this extension array makes all of the associated drives in the array appear as one large drive to the operating system. That being said, RAID is not necessary if you are just looking for additional storage. I suggest simply plugging in the new drive alongside your current one and, if you are using Windows, open the 'Computer Management' window and from there open the 'Disk Management' window. From there you will see all working, powered drives available to your system, including the new drive, which will have a large capacity of free, unallocated storage space. Select that new drive, create a new partition, and format it to NTFS. If you plan on using the entire drive for storage, format the entire drive, else only format however much you want to dedicate to storage. When the format is complete, the drive will be readily accessible to you, the end user, for use at your heart's content

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there landsofwinter,

Regarding the technical part of simply adding an additional drive, I would say that there are many tutorials and videos on the internet on how to do that. Here's one: http://www.wikihow.com/Add-an-Extra-Hard-Drive
After that, you just go to Disk Management: Initialize -> Partition and format.

I don't really think that you need to set up a RAID, as the purpose of the drive is simply additional storage space.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[landsofwinter]

Ah, okay, thank you both for your help!