Merging(?) two SSDs

[F]

I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.

One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.

I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.

Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

Apparently it is. I started out writing a "boot a usb partitioning tool,
use that to resize C:, go to Disk Management and convert your disks from
Basic to Active..." but this says Win11 can do it all non-destructively:

https://pureinfotech.com/change-partition-size-windows-11/

As far as I can tell this is not a chatgpt hallucination script, but I
don't use Win11 so I can't directly confirm.

Cheers - Jaimie

[F]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

Apparently it is. I started out writing a "boot a usb partitioning tool,
use that to resize C:, go to Disk Management and convert your disks from
https://pureinfotech.com/change-partition-size-windows-11/
As far as I can tell this is not a chatgpt hallucination script, but I
don't use Win11 so I can't directly confirm.
Cheers - Jaimie

Thanks. I've used the Windows 11 built-in method to resize C and then
expand D with both on a single SSD but it's the merging the unallocated
space on C with a separate physical SSD drive D that's bothering me.

I'll have a look at your link and see how it goes!

Frank

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by F

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

Apparently it is. I started out writing a "boot a usb partitioning tool,
use that to resize C:, go to Disk Management and convert your disks from
https://pureinfotech.com/change-partition-size-windows-11/
As far as I can tell this is not a chatgpt hallucination script, but I
don't use Win11 so I can't directly confirm.
Cheers - Jaimie

Thanks. I've used the Windows 11 built-in method to resize C and then
expand D with both on a single SSD but it's the merging the unallocated
space on C with a separate physical SSD drive D that's bothering me.

That's the easy bit so should just work :)

Post by F
I'll have a look at your link and see how it goes!

Cheers - Jaimie

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by F

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

Apparently it is. I started out writing a "boot a usb partitioning tool,
use that to resize C:, go to Disk Management and convert your disks from
https://pureinfotech.com/change-partition-size-windows-11/
As far as I can tell this is not a chatgpt hallucination script, but I
don't use Win11 so I can't directly confirm.
Cheers - Jaimie

Thanks. I've used the Windows 11 built-in method to resize C and then
expand D with both on a single SSD but it's the merging the unallocated
space on C with a separate physical SSD drive D that's bothering me.

Ah, the "Expand" section on that site doesn't have the necessary
precondition of converting the disks from Basic to Dynamic. This is
needed in order to be able to expand one drive letter over partitions on
two physical drives.
* Convert both disks to Dynamic (right click) which *should* be possible
live, might need a reboot
* Delete any volumes on the second drive
* Format your D: space on the first drive, right click "expand" and it
should let you choose the second drive.

I should mention that of course this doubles your chances of losing
everything on the D: drive, as if either SSD fails then it's all gone.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Philip Herlihy]

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

There might be a solution here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/storage-spaces-in-windows-b6c8b540-
b8d8-fb8a-e7ab-4a75ba11f9f2

Or maybe here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1621482/how-to-merge-two-
disks-in-windows-10

I'll be interested to hear how you get on if you try either of these.

[Philip Herlihy]

In article <***@news.eternal-september.org>, Philip
Herlihy wrote...

Post by Philip Herlihy

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/storage-spaces-in-windows-b6c8b540-
b8d8-fb8a-e7ab-4a75ba11f9f2
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1621482/how-to-merge-two-
disks-in-windows-10
I'll be interested to hear how you get on if you try either of these.

Another option might be to use a junction point to make part of one disk appear
to be part of the folder hierarchy on another. This article is a good summary
of this useful facility.
https://www.2brightsparks.com/resources/articles/NTFS-Hard-Links-Junctions-and-
Symbolic-Links.pdf

I use these when filesystems are essentially replicated on different systems
but possibly with a differently named arc of the hierarchy. This can happen in
OneDrive when the system has given the same MS Account a different local
username and corresponding folder in \Users. Adding a junction with the
'expected' name makes a path on one machine viable on another. If they
junction point is located in the same folder as its target folder, then
navigation always works as expected.

Note that they can have unexpected consquences. If you refer to a file using a
full path which traverses a junction then you get the file, no problem. But if
you navigate (e.g. in a script) across a junction to an arbitrary location then
"up one folder" will land you in the destination hierarchy rather than the one
you've come from. "Back a folder" will behave as expected (bear in mind many
users may not appreciate there is a junction involved and you may forget!).

Another option that occurs to me is that there is the option to mount a volume
in an empty NTFS folder. Never done that, so I can't comment on how navigation
would behave.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-
management/assign-a-mount-point-folder-path-to-a-drive

[Philip Herlihy]

In article <***@news.eternal-september.org>, Philip
Herlihy wrote...

Post by Philip Herlihy
Herlihy wrote...

Post by Philip Herlihy

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/storage-spaces-in-windows-b6c8b540-
b8d8-fb8a-e7ab-4a75ba11f9f2
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1621482/how-to-merge-two-
disks-in-windows-10
I'll be interested to hear how you get on if you try either of these.

Another option might be to use a junction point to make part of one disk appear
to be part of the folder hierarchy on another. This article is a good summary
of this useful facility.
https://www.2brightsparks.com/resources/articles/NTFS-Hard-Links-Junctions-and-
Symbolic-Links.pdf
I use these when filesystems are essentially replicated on different systems
but possibly with a differently named arc of the hierarchy. This can happen in
OneDrive when the system has given the same MS Account a different local
username and corresponding folder in \Users. Adding a junction with the
'expected' name makes a path on one machine viable on another. If they
junction point is located in the same folder as its target folder, then
navigation always works as expected.
Note that they can have unexpected consquences. If you refer to a file using a
full path which traverses a junction then you get the file, no problem. But if
you navigate (e.g. in a script) across a junction to an arbitrary location then
"up one folder" will land you in the destination hierarchy rather than the one
you've come from. "Back a folder" will behave as expected (bear in mind many
users may not appreciate there is a junction involved and you may forget!).
Another option that occurs to me is that there is the option to mount a volume
in an empty NTFS folder. Never done that, so I can't comment on how navigation
would behave.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-
management/assign-a-mount-point-folder-path-to-a-drive

And another thing that occurs to me is that you can change the physical
location of "standard" folders (e.g. "Documents") so that files are stored and
retrieved on another volume. Note, though, that the OneDrive "folder backup"
system uses the same mechanism, so you can't do both.

[F]

Post by F
I've acquired a new laptop with 2TB of storage provided by two PCIe NVMe
1TB SSDs.
One has been installed as drive C (yes, all 1TB of it) and the other as
drive D.
I'd prefer to retain the C and D arrangement but with just 300GB of the
present C holding Windows and its files along with installed programs.
Ideally, I would have the balance of the present C drive, 700GB, and the
whole of the present D drive seen as one D drive.
Is this possible? If it is, how would I go about it please?

Thanks, all, for the suggestions.

After a few hours searching and reading it seems that what I want to do
isn't possible and, if it was, the consequences of one of the drives
failing wouldn't be worth the benefits I'm looking for.

I'll play safe and go for my usual setup and transfer the usual library
folders to the second drive then shrink C and create E.

If only a 2TB drive had been installed rather than the two 1TB drives.

Frank