spanned volume

A spanned volume is a Windows disk management option that combines multiple physical disks into a single logical volume, writing data sequentially across them. In Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 7, users encounter spanned volumes alongside simple, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes in Disk Management. Unlike parity spaces or RAID, spanned volumes offer no fault tolerance; if one disk fails, the entire volume is lost. They are useful for pooling smaller disks into a larger storage space without redundancy. Understanding spanned volumes is important for IT professionals managing storage in Windows environments, especially when configuring servers or preparing for exams like the 70-680.