#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED WINDOWS 10#
#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED PLUS#
#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED FREE#
#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED WINDOWS#

Right click the basic disk -> choose 'Convert to Dynamic Disk' from the popup menu -> click 'OK' -> tap 'Convert' to get the window below: Actually, we can convert a basic disk to dynamic disk or turn a dynamic disk to basic disk without data loss when there is a need.ĭetailed steps of converting basic disk to dynamic disk: Relationship Between Basic Disk and Dynamic DiskĪlthough basic disk and dynamic disk are 2 types of hard disk configurations, they are not completely irrelevant. However, with a third party partitioning program, we can extend any types of dynamic volumes.

#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED WINDOWS#

In Windows snap-in Disk Management utility, we are only allowed to extend simple volumes and spanned volumes except for the system and boot one or we can extend a mirrored volume after breaking the mirror.

RAID-5 volume stripes data and parity across three or more disks.įor more information about these volumes, please see Dynamic Disk.

Spanned volume combines spaces on 2 hard disks at least to a dynamic volume.

Striped volume improves disk input/output performance by distributing I/O requests across disks.

Mirrored volume provides fault tolerance by creating a copy of data contained in this volume.

Simple volume functions like primary partitions on basic disk.

On a dynamic disk, we can create 5 types of dynamic volumes to enhance computer performance, including simple volume, mirrored volume, striped volume, spanned volume, and RAID-5 volume. In addition, each dynamic disk in a computer saves a copy of the database, so that Windows can repair a damaged database by using the database on other dynamic disks. On MBR partitions, the database is contained in the last 1 megabyte (MB) of the disk while database on GPT partitions is located in a 1MB reserved partition.

Dynamic disks use a database to track information about all volumes on the disk as well as information about other dynamic disks, and the location of the database is determined by partition style of the disk. It is a separate form of volume management that allows one volume to have noncontiguous extents on one or more physical disks. What Is Dynamic Diskĭynamic disk uses dynamic volumes to manage data. Otherwise, Extend Volume feature is grayed out.

#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED FREE#

We can extend a primary partition by adding contiguous unallocated space on the same disk or extend a logical drive by adding free space contained in extended partition, but these partitions should be formatted with NTFS file system. And a GPT based hard disk can hold up to 128 partitions.

#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED PLUS#

An MBR based basic disk can have either four primary partitions OR three primary plus one extended partition, but the extended partition can contain an unlimited number of logical drives. On MBR disks, partitions are called primary partition, extended partition, or logical partition while all partitions on GPT disk are called GPT partitions which function like primary partitions.

To create GPT style partitions, we should initialize the disk to GPT (GUID partition table).įor more information, please see About Partition Style (MBR and GPT) in Ways to Convert Partition Type, Partition Style, and Disk Type.

To create MBR style partitions, we need to initialize the hard disk to MBR (master boot record). On a basic disk, we can create 2 styles of partitions, namely MBR style partition and GPT style partition.

#DISK FORMATTING EXPLAINED WINDOWS 10#

Relationship Between Basic Disk and Dynamic Diskīasic disk uses partitions to manage data, and one partition cannot share and split data with other partitions (the late versions of Windows OS like Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 also call partitions volumes).

Disk formatting explained