Is it possible to link several old HDD together as a large external storage device?

[juventusfc10]

Over the years my family and I have accumulated several 500gb hard drives (3.5" SATA). I would like to create some sort of central storage unit with all drives to avoid wasting them (willing to format all).

Is it possible to have them all linked and act as one large storage volume?

If not, is there a way to put them all in one common enclosure, and either have it available on the home network or via USB for all of our laptop/desktops? Everyone is running OS X (all Yosemite, one snow leopard)

Any opinions and/or suggestions greatly appreciated!

 

[kch50428]

Search "hard drive enclosure" in the search engine of your choice...

 

[knotsure]

Would that be a "RAID" setup?