How to Partition Dynamic Disk?

Many people, especially server users want to resize dynamic disk, or partition dynamic disk for new volumes. Below are some real cases:

"I have Windows 2000 server with 2 hard drive configure to do software RAID, hard drive are set as dynamic mirroring disk0 and disk1. Currently "C" is 8G, "D" is 22G, I want to resize "C" to 16G and "D" to 14G".

"I want to resize my Windows Small Business Server 2003 boot disk partition. The disk is 73 GB, the boot partition is 15 GB. The boot partition is mirrored and is a dynamic disk."

"I was trying to move free space from the "D" drive to the "C" drive (the boot drive) on a Windows Server 2003 dynamic disk for Small Business Server. The C drive has filled up."

"Can I create a second partition on a SATA 320Gb Seagate drive that is a Dynamic Disk without any data loss on the original partition?"

Why people need to partition dynamic disk?

After creating different dynamic volume, you can use the volume as a partition on basic disk and you can create, format, change drive letter, etc, but there is a problem that if one dynamic volume is out of space, you cannot expand it, except Simple Volume and Spanned Volume. Generally, the low disk space problem is more likely occurred in system volume, but this volume cannot be expanded in Disk Management before Windows Vista. Currently, there is no tool that can partition dynamic disk directly.

Why it is hard to partition dynamic disk?

In a basic disk, all partitions are in the same physical hard disk and they are easy to be controlled by MBR, partition table, DBR, etc. But to dynamic disks, the dynamic volume is constructed by two or more physical disks, so to partition a dynamic disk means you have to change all disk information, as well as all data. Except for a dynamic disk with only Simple Volume, it is easier to manage, as Simple Volume does not span different physical disks.

Is there a way to partition dynamic disk?

1. You can resize dynamic volume directly on dynamic disk.

2.You can use the partitioning tool - EaseUS Partition Master to convert dynamic disk to basic disk, after you partition the basic disk, you can convert the basic disk to dynamic one in Disk Management.

3. You can copy dynamic volume to basic disk, and then resize partition.

You need several steps, select the source dynamic volume, choose the target basic disk, and process copying. You can resize partition at the same time when you copy.

If you want to upgrade you computer, EaseUS Partition Master also is a good tool, no matter you want to copy basic disk or dynamic volume. It can copy to hardware RAID disk directly, too.

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