JBOD

hi i just have a really newbie question coz im kinda confused about jbod.... im planning to buy another HDD for my rig since the hdd that im using right now is about to be full.. im using a seagate 1tb hdd as of the moment and i wanna a 2tb seagate barracuda and i just wanna put it in my rig as an independent hdd so i can have additional storage capacity.. my questions are:

1. will it be a JBOD setup? and if it is, is it true that if one of the disk fails all of your date will be gone?
2. can i just install the hdd as it is.. i mean like connecting the sata cable to the mobo and the power cable to the hdd and let it be just another drive in my computer so that if my original hdd fails i still have the 2nd hdd to use...

thanks in advance mates!

cheers!

1. Nope. a JBOD is a essentially a RAID setup of differing size drives or a conglomerate of drives split up as you choose. You stated you want it as an independent drive not associated/combined with the other.
2. Yes. You may need to initialize and format it, but, yes.

thanks for the reply... so correct me im wrong.. i can simply put another 2tb hdd on my rig and just connect it to the power and the mobo and then change the boot priority on my bios so it will boot on my original hdd and 2nd would be my 2nd hdd the 2tb one right? im sorry i really dont have any knowledge on this... do i need to change any other settings or install anything else to make this happen?

As I said above all you would need to do is:

You may need to initialize and format it, but, yes.

Click to expand...

1. Plug it in
2. Power on the PC
3. If the drive is noticed, you are already good to go
3a. If not, go into computer management and intialize and format the drive
4. Enjoy your new space completely separate from your other drive.

You also may need to update the boot order (done in the bios) in case it puts your new drive first.

EarthDog said:

As I said above all you would need to do is:

1. Plug it in
2. Power on the PC
3. If the drive is noticed, you are already good to go
3a. If not, go into computer management and intialize and format the drive
4. Enjoy your new space completely separate from your other drive.

You also may need to update the boot order (done in the bios) in case it puts your new drive first.

Click to expand...

thanks for the answer...

karikapu said:

... so that if my original hdd fails i still have the 2nd hdd to use...

Click to expand...

For some definition of "to use."

Anything you stored on the 2nd drive will be there should the first drive stop working. However if you have not done anything to copy your OS and programs over, your PC will no longer boot and getting back to a working PC could be a pain. One thing to consider would be to mirror (*) the first drive to the second and swap that in as your boot drive. That gets you an additional TB of storage and probably moves most of your drive usage to the new drive. When you fill up the second TB on the new drive, you can reformat the old 1TB drive to get more storage (or buy another drive.) Or perhaps before that day comes along, you can add a nice fast SSD for your system drive. ) Probably overkill. I don't know of anyone who does that. I don't.

NB: I would do some research on large drive reliability before choosing a Seagate.

(*) I'm speaking of one time copy, not a RAID mirror.

You guys are confusing JBOD and "BIG" (the name varies). JBOD literally stands for "Just a Bunch Of Drives"; not in RAID, not concatenated or anything. BIG is the name used by some manufacturers to denote the drives will be concatenated, which mean you see them as a single contiguous disk.

OP, simply adding the drive to the system will let you mount it as a different drive letter and use it normally. It won't expand your current drive, but it gives you the full storage amount of the new disk.

If you are using lvm, you could add the new drive to your volume group and expand your current logical volume to include the space from the new drive.