How do I combine several small HDDs to make one large HDD?

[m654321]

[quote author=bitsnpcs link=topic=5001.msg37823#msg37823 date=1515766899]
Many thanks btsnpcs - very useful information.
The only reservation I have now, after reading the links you gave, is that if one of the drives (within the larger spanned drive) fails, then you risk losing all the data - a significant consideration !
Therefore, bearing this in mind,  the spanned drive would need to be backed-up frequently to mitigate against such data loss occurring ...

Many thanks again - much appreciated.

If a single high capacity HDD fails, the same situation applies - possibility of loss of all data! The question is, is one or more of three spanned drives any more likely to fail than a single drive?
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The answer to that is yes.
The probability or chance of any given single drive failing, no matter how small the risk, is the same, with the caveat of all things being equal: drive type, make etc.
If you have 4 of these drives combined to make 1 larger drive, then the probability of the larger drive failing is increased 4 times, i.e. you sum the probabilities for the risk for each of the component drives.

Any mathematicians out there, please correct me if I'm not making sense on probabilities ... :o

Yes, not very good from an energy consumption point of view either, especially if you have several of these: e.g. around 5 to 10 Amps current drain for 10 drives!

Mike