Creating a “virtual disk” using multiple storage devices

Question

I have a disparate set of storage devices (hard-drives, thumb-drives...) that I would like to use in a specific way. I need a tool to:

1. Combine several storage devices and "consolidate" them into a single emulated storage space (example : I have three 1Gb USB thumb-drives, I want to see them as a unique 3Gb drive)
2. Manage the pool of storage devices: when I add a new storage device to the storage pool or remove it, the emulated hard-drive will be re-sized (automatically or manually)

Please note that the thumb-drives and hard-disks have different sizes, which means this is not about RAID, and they are all "low capacity" drives (the highest one is just a 80 GB hard drive).

I am looking for a solution for Windows 7 or Windows 8 (basically Windows Client machines)

Thank you.

Answer 1

You could try creating a spanned volume, which is a built-in feature of Windows.

Have a look at the instructions detailed here.