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I have two hard disk of 30GB each.

  • (First Hard Disk - 30GB) [C:] Windows 8
  • (Second Hard Disk - 30GB) [D:] Free

I would like to use the second hard disk to expand the space of my first hard disk.

Is there anyway to do this? (Without having to reinstall everything?) Windows 8 after 2 days has already used 25GB.

Be Aware: they are NOT on the same HDD.

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2  
You need a bigger hard drive, 60gb will eventually be too small over time. – Moab Nov 6 '12 at 14:52
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You can create a fakeraid in Disk Management. – kobaltz Nov 6 '12 at 14:52
They seem pretty small to me, and running Windows 8... Are you sure they're two hard drives and not 1 hard drive with several partitions? – Xandy Nov 6 '12 at 14:53
@kobaltz: can you explain that? Also are you sure I can span C:\ partition over another HDD? – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 14:54
1  
@xandy: they are 2 SSDs – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 14:55
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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Natively, you can't. If it was a raid before installing Windows, you could use two hard drives and extend, but you can't do so after Windows is installed, on the boot drive.

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Considering RAID: Can I do it without using RAID 0 ? – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 15:05
1  
With dynamic disks, you can, but not on the boot drive – Luke Nov 6 '12 at 15:19
+1, I'd select this one as the accepted answer. – Xandy Nov 6 '12 at 16:10
@Xandy Thanks :) – Luke Nov 6 '12 at 19:38
up vote 18 down vote

This doesn't work if the partition you are extending has Windows on it, since Windows labels them as a Boot drive and they can't be extended across other disks. The only solution would be to use a hardware RAID at this moment.

There is no need for third party utilities this time, for that you'll have to convert your disks to what Windows calls "dynamic disk" and then extend the volume across disks.

This would be the procedure:

  1. Press +X to bring the power user menu up and then G to open the computer management console.

  2. Go to Disks Management, you'll see something like this (but without that 2nd partition in the first drive and the 3rd disk and maybe with a System Reserved partition):

    Disks overview

  3. Right click Disk 0 and select to convert it to a dynamic disk:

    Converting to dynamic

  4. In the process choose the second disk aswell:

    Choosing both disks

  5. After the conversion is done, right click the volume where Windows is and select to extend the volume, add the second disk in:

    Extending to another disk

  6. Next and Finish and you're done, your Windows drive would be extended using the second disk as well.

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This seems GREAT! But when I do right click on C:\ I don't have Convert to Dynamic Disk WTF ?? – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 15:19
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Hmm... are you right clicking the C volume? You have to right click the disk itself. – Xandy Nov 6 '12 at 15:21
Ahh got it! Sorry – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 15:21
I did it. Now both Disk are yellow. But I don't have the extend volume option (it's disabled =/ ) – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 15:24
Do you have any partition in the second disk? The disk has to be empty. – Xandy Nov 6 '12 at 15:24
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up vote 3 down vote

Check out Storage Spaces. Paul Thurrott has an excellent article on it. In short, hit the Windows key and type 'Storage Spaces'.

I am not sure if you can add drives to the C: drive however, so this might not be the answer you seek.

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Unfortunately can't work on C:\... At this point I believe i just can't do it – yes123 Nov 6 '12 at 15:10
   
Reviews I've seen said storage spaces had rather poor write performance for software raid. Unless/Until that's fixed I'd be leery about using it. – Dan Neely Nov 6 '12 at 19:43

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