this might seem like a totaly off the wall question, but usb can support up to a total of 127 devices. right? what if 127 of those devices were hard disk drives. totaly in theory, providing that they all had power. what would your drives be labled abc... xyz... ???

That is a known limitation with Windows and their file system. What you'd have to do basically is mount the additional hard drives past Z: into folders on the other drives. Linux for example doesn't suffer from this limitation. MCSE, MCSA Messaging, baby!

that's a very good question. a similar problem arises when there are more than 26 partitions. this site says the limit is 26. i would guess that's the limit for usb drives as well. http://linux.org.mt/article/partnames#N1009D

Well, USB can support up to 127 devices but you would only be able to support hard drives up to Z: once it hits that point you would not be able to use the rest because there is no possible way to go higher then Z: and get something like an AA: drive. It is one of the limitations. You still maybe able to see all the drives and partition them but that is about it. Don't quote me on this but it maybe possible in Linux and similiar OSs but definitely not Windows.

Say you make it to Z with a bunch of usb 2.0 hard drives on your computer, wouldn't it be extremely slow access speed if people accessed more than one drive at a time? I mean you couldn't make a file server with multiple usb 2.0 drives could you? I have only 1 120gig usb 2.0 external powered hard drive to experiment with but again I am only a home user. If a business ran out of room would adding multiple usb 2.0 hard drives be even considerable?

"there is no possible way to go higher then Z: and get something like an AA: drive. It is one of the limitations. You still maybe able to see all the drives and partition them but that is about it. Don't quote me on this but it maybe possible in Linux and similiar OSs but definitely not Windows." -...You just quoted what was already said, except that you somehow made it sound ignorant.

I was thinking "Dynamic Power Supply" to solve the problem. For example, Select Drive 123 from a web page to power it up. That way any combination of drives can be accessed up to Z! Also, 127 is no longer the USB limit with such a method as you can physically connect a zillion drives and power them up with software controlled relays untill Z: is reached. 808