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What is the MAX number of hard disc drives for windows 10

Anonymous
2020-09-21T13:12:27+00:00

I am going to be buying a server with 24 drive bays. I have quite the collection of work files I want to store on it BUT... I want to hook them up like they were LOCAL drives using my NETDRIVE3 application. So each of them has a LOCAL letter and I can access then each as if they were in my computer case. Is there a way to make a second set of drives such as AA: BB: CC: DD: EE: etc... in windows 10 or am I limited to the A-Z the end? Someone please provide me with a solution so that I can access these drives locally on my computer(s) The programs I use NEED the drives to have DRIVE LETTERS to function properly.

Thanks in advance.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-09-21T21:05:49+00:00

    Microsoft really needs to make it so that it will support more drive letters. Linux I think will support more and this MAY force me to go to a linux based system for a couple of reasons. 1) IT's FREE and 2) It has more functionality. I really am hoping that microsoft changes  this somehow in their next release.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-09-21T14:56:44+00:00

    See DaveM121's reply, and let me add that the actual number is 24, not 26, since A: and B: are not available for hard drives.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-22T12:43:27+00:00

    So a network drive would display without a letter but rather a mount point and how many of those could I have?

    There is no limit to the number of physical disks you can have, provided the controller(s) have the required number of ports.

    Most admins start using mount points way before they start running out of drive letters.  There are all sorts of advantages, such as backing up all the drives in one go.

    I have a system with 96 physical drives for data. I created a folder in my C: drive called MountPoints to keep everything in one place. The first disk is mounted as c:\MountPoints\c1p0 and the last is mounted as c:\MountPoints\c4p23. I used controller number, port number for the mount point names (4x 24-port controllers).

    For you the question is whether your app will accept paths or mount points.

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  4. DaveM121 872.1K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2020-09-21T13:21:04+00:00

    Hi thereverend210

    I am Dave, an Independent Advisor, I will help you with this . . .

    The maximum number of drives with a drive letter assigned that is allowed in Windows is 26, there is no way to then use AA, BB . . etc. otherwise the only option is mounting drives and using re-directs, which would not suit your needs, because those would not have a drive letter . . .

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-09-24T11:51:04+00:00

    If you have FREENAS on the same server as the disks, you can forget about drive letters and mount points.

    In FREENAS, click on the storage icon, then Volumes tab and then click on Volume Manager. From there you can create volumes directly. You can then use datasets to specify paths/files.

    It really is worth your while to setup a machine with FREENAS and experiment

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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