How to mount hard drive as folder on Windows 10
If you have multiple drives on your device, you can use this guide to ditch the drive letter and mount the storage as a folder on Windows 10.
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On Windows 10, when the hard drive starts to run out of space, you usually add another to extend the available storage. Although it is a quick solution, as time goes on, you could end up with a long list of drives on your computer, which sometimes may not be the best approach to organize your data.
Instead of using other solutions likeStorage Spacesor Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) to combine drives into a logical volume,Windows 10also allows you to mount a hard drive to a folder rather than using a drive letter. This approach will not only reduce the number of drive letters, but it will also help you to organize your drives better.
Furthermore, this is also an ideal solution when you share a folder on the network, and thestorage is running out of space. Instead of creating a new network share, you can simply assign a mount-point folder path to a hard drive inside the folder already shared in the network to make more storage available.
In this Windows 10 guide, we will walk you through two ways to mount a hard drive as a folder on your device using the Disk Management console.
How to assign folder path mount-point to drive with data on Windows 10
To mount a drive with data as a folder with Disk Management, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, the secondary hard drive will now be accessible from the folder location you created.
How to assign folder path mount-point to drive without data on Windows 10
To mount an empty drive as a folder with Disk Management, use these steps:
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After you complete the steps, the new drive will be formatted and mounted as a folder from the specified folder.
When using this solution, each drive will continue to work independently without redundancy, which means that if a drive fails, you will lose the data on that drive, but not on the others. If you have important data, it is always recommended toperiodically create a backup.
Mauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years.
