I run MS SQL 2000, database is growing and my concern is the hard drive will soon run out of disk space. i wonder if i can add a new hard drive and tell SQL there is more space. my question is how i can combine the two hard disks and make SQL thinks it is the same disk. any input or help would be appricated.

Hello,

This is an operating systems question. You might find a better response in that forum.

You will want to first backup your data after closing the database.

Then, depending what version of Windows Server you are running, you will need to span the volume, or you will need to remove the present volume, and replace it with a larger drive. Remember that disks here are different than volumes.

In the windows world, we often think of C: being a disk... it is not... it is a partition on a disk. We can take the same disk, and make a D: or an E: or any other letter that is open.

Windows makes it possible to make a single drive letter span across multiple disks. Of course, you need to think about fault tolerance, and how important it is to your setup. If you cannot afford to be down, then you will need a stronger solution than simply spanning multiple disks. The more disks involved, the more room for failure.

In my opinion, without knowing more of your system requirements and use characteristics, I would at least be looking at a RAID 5 or a larger single drive. If you have other means of fault tolerance, then you can go ahead and look at windows spanning too.

Note also that Windows is not the only OS that can span... linux can too.

Christian

I don't think you need to implement raid to solve this issue (it would do, albeit expensively), adding a new hard disk and creating new filegroups on it would be sufficient. Creating file groups and allocating resources to them requires a good understanding of your database structure.

these links may be of use