Assigning Drive Letter to External HDD’s

[Owner]

Assigning Drive Letter to External HDD’s

What happens when all letters A-Z have been assigned?

[Owner]

When using External HDD’s with Media Centres the HDD’s must be connected by the drive letters that you told the Media Centre.
You can choose any letters that is not in use.
You assign Drive Letters By

Right click START - DISK MANAGEMENT to change drive letters to the letter you told the Media Centre.

Windows OS will not allow AA, AB, AC, AD, . . . double Letters.
Drive letters, A, B, C, D are usually not available only leaving 22 letters E to Z.
So if you have more than 22 external HDD’s you have a problem!

For Example

My Media at the moment is on 22 small 5TB external portable HDD’s which I tell the Media Centre are on Drives E to Z no problem!

Note: My Metadata for all 22 HDD’’s is now on the PC in the Media Centre’s Software Folder, Important! This means I can browse the Media Centre and see pic and info on all my Media even if the HDD is not plugged in.
But as my Media collection grows to more than 22 External Portable Drives I have a Problem!

Note: At any one time all 22 External HDD’s are not plugged in only the one that contains what I want to watch.
Some Cheeky Advance Media Centres say “The show you want to watch is on HDD 18 please plug it in and I will play it for you!”


The best solution is to get a single 110TB External HDD, but the guys in the shops said they did not thing that they exist yet, just buy some Powered High Capacity External HDD;s

[Efficient_Good_5784]

This is one of the reasons why NAS/DAS exist. They allow for a lot of storage to be presented under a single interface (and mounted as a single drive letter under Windows).

If you don't want to configure a lot of things, just get something like a Synology or QNAP that handles most things for you.
Make sure to get one with with enough HDD bays so you can fit enough storage for your needs.

The biggest internal-HDD drive size available online right now are 24TB drives (though they cost a lot too currently).
For 110TB, getting an 8-bay NAS/DAS and at least x7 20TB drives seems reasonable (x7 if you're going to use RAID5 since RAID5 makes you lose 1 drive's worth of space to parity).

[TheDreadPirate]

Use Linux.   

Doesn't use drive letters so you don't have to worry about running out.

[Owner]

Thanks all for great info.

Why I need so much storage is that TV Series and Documentary Series are mostly on ISO files, as I like the trouble the DVD makers have gone to with menus, extras, etc.

I definitely have to find out what NAS /DAS is and Synology or QNAP

Linux is a very stable and reliable OS from the Unix family, used world wide for critical and secure applications, but unfortunately quite alien for a lifetime Windows user

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux