Merge 2 partitions in different Hard Disks?

[khalid00]

Greetings,

I have a question: I got Mac Pro with Lion OS... and I have two Hard disk.. the first one is "Macintosh HD", the second Hard Disk have two partitions... lets Call them "A" and "B".... "A" is in use... but "B" is empty... i want to merge "Macintosh HD" with "B" without losing my Data in "Macintosh HD" is that possible??

Thanks in Advance

 

[Sjhonny]

Greetings,

I have a question: I got Mac Pro with Lion OS... and I have two Hard disk.. the first one is "Macintosh HD", the second Hard Disk have two partitions... lets Call them "A" and "B".... "A" is in use... but "B" is empty... i want to merge "Macintosh HD" with "B" without losing my Data in "Macintosh HD" is that possible??

Thanks in Advance

nope. Anyway, not like a real raid 0.

 

[khalid00]

nope. Anyway, not like a real raid 0.

What can i do??

 

[nerdo]

Nothing? not something you want to consider, even if you manage to set it up: if one drive fails you loose everything.

 

[Inconsequential]

Nothing.

And RAID 0, if it would even work, would be a dumb option to use.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

Not sure what the other posters mean by "dumb option" or "not something you'd want to consider". RAID0 with multiple partitions is certainly possible, and in some cases a good idea to increase performance. I'm of course talking about 10.6. RAIDs and 10.7 just don't work very well as of now.

But I'm not even sure khalid wants a RAID0. Do you? Or do you want a JBOD? Do you know the differences between the 2?

Loa

 

[khalid00]

Hello,

Not sure what the other posters mean by "dumb option" or "not something you'd want to consider". RAID0 with multiple partitions is certainly possible, and in some cases a good idea to increase performance. I'm of course talking about 10.6. RAIDs and 10.7 just don't work very well as of now.

But I'm not even sure khalid wants a RAID0. Do you? Or do you want a JBOD? Do you know the differences between the 2?

Loa

thanks alot loaaa ... i don't know the difference between the two! your help is much appreciated.... and your recommendation of course! thanks again

 

[Loa]

Hello,

Instead of explaining the two in detail, I'd like to know what you want to gain from this merging (space, performance,...). I'll be more able to give you advice once I know.

A tip in the meantime: whenever you start talking about merging disks/partitions, you **have** to have at least 1 full back-up of everything. Having a back-up is crucial to everyone, all the time, but more so when talking about this.

Loa

 

[minifridge1138]

I don't think you'd get a performance boost even if you did raid Mac HD and 'B'. Because 'A' and 'B' are part of the same physical disk, your raid array would now be battling the 'A' partition for resources (1/2 of the array wants the spindle and 'A' wants the spindle).

If you just want to reclaim the drive space, you could delete 'B' and extend 'A' to use the space.

 

[khalid00]

I don't think you'd get a performance boost even if you did raid Mac HD and 'B'. Because 'A' and 'B' are part of the same physical disk, your raid array would now be battling the 'A' partition for resources (1/2 of the array wants the spindle and 'A' wants the spindle).

If you just want to reclaim the drive space, you could delete 'B' and extend 'A' to use the space.

Thanks Loa for your great feedback.. i can reclaim the drive space... but to be honest my main purpose is to increase the space of 'Macintosh HD' ... its running out of space...

 

[Loa]

Hello,

but to be honest my main purpose is to increase the space of 'Macintosh HD' ... its running out of space...

Honestly, creating a JBOD or a RAID for that purpose would be a very temporary and inelegant solution. I don't know what your budget is like, but hard drives are very cheap these days. I think getting a new hard-drive would be the best solution.

Merging two partitions from 2 different drives to use as your OS X (boot) volume is certainly possible (that's what I do), but it's a bit more risky and not worth it if all you need is more space.

Get yourself a new drive and use your current Macintosh HD as either a back-up drive or or simply an extra drive.

Loa