Configuring Spanned Volumes
Spanned volumes, formerly called volume sets, allow you to combine disk space on more than one physical disk to create one logical volume. A spanned volume is a storage solution that helps you make the most of smaller pieces of disk space, but spanned volumes do not have any inherent fault toleranceif one disk fails, the entire volume is lost. In a spanned volume, data is written to the first disk until the disk is full; then, data is written to the second disk, and so forth. To create a spanned volume, you need at least two dynamic disks with a maximum of 32 dynamic disks. Spanned volumes provide no fault tolerance, and cannot be mirrored or striped. To create a spanned volume, follow these steps:
Right-click an area of unformatted free space on the first disk that will be included in the spanned volume.
Choose Create Volume.
The wizard appears.
Select the Spanned Volume radio button, and click Next.
The wizard will ask you to select additional areas on other hard disks to create the volume and then present you with a summary at the end.
Click Finish.