Resize Dynamic Disk to Extend or Shrink Dynamic Disk

Step-by-step dynamic disk partition guide tells you how to resize dynamic disk volume to expand or shrink dynamic disk in Windows without data loss. What's more, move dynamic disk or partition without a hitch.

 

Quick View of Resizing or Extending Dynamic Disk on Windows:

2 Ways to Resize (Extend/Shrink) Dynamic Disk

Dynamic disk is a good choice for people who want to maximize hard drive performance. However, it has two huge disadvantages. One is if you convert a basic disk to dynamic, you cannot turn it back without data loss, as you need to delete all dynamic volumes first before converting. The other is in most conditions the dynamic volume still cannot be extended in disk management, especially for the system volume. Many people will encounter this problem if they need to increase the dynamic disk.

Here, we will introduce two ways for you to resize the dynamic disk：

• One is a third-party tool - EaseUS Partition Master.
• The other is to apply the traditional Disk Management method. 

 The first method offsets the limitation and supports resizing dynamic disks directly with all data protected.

Method 1. Resize and Extend Dynamic Disk Using EaseUS Partition Master

As mentioned before, Disk Management has many limitations in resizing the dynamic disk. As a better replacement, EaseUS Partition Master can do the following dynamic disk management operations. Check and download EaseUS Partition Master on your computer.

This software enables you to extend dynamic volume, including system/boot/simple/spanned/striped/mirrored/RAID-5 volume, so as to maximize computer performance in just a few simple clicks. You can now resize dynamic volumes can be realized with ease by following the next steps:

Step 1. Locate the volume

Choose the volume on the dynamic disk, right-click on it and choose "Resize/Move".

Step 2. Resize the volume

• To shrink a volume - drag the volume panel leftward or use the "Partition size" option to adjust the volume size you'd like to decrease, then click OK to confirm.
• To extend a volume - If there is no unallocated space, repeat the shrink volume process to create enough unallocated space. Then on the new pop-out window, use your mouse to drag one of its ends into unallocated space. Click OK to confirm. 

Step 3. Apply changes

To save the changes, click "Execute 1 Task(s)" and then "Apply".

Else Tasks You Can Execute on Dynamic Disk with EaseUS Partition Master:

• Shrink dynamic volume, including system/boot/simple/spanned/striped/mirrored/RAID-5 volume, to free up disk space.
• Convert dynamic disk to basic disk without losing data.
• Copy dynamic volume, including system/boot/simple/spanned/striped/mirrored/RAID-5 volume.
• Delete dynamic volume, explore dynamic volume, check file system on dynamic volume, defrag dynamic volume.
• Convert FAT dynamic volume to NTFS file system
• Repair RAID-5 volume when it failed.

Method 2. Manage and Resize Dynamic Disk via Disk Management

Step 1. Right-click My Computer, select Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management, and open Windows built-in Disk Management.

Step 2. Select the volume you want to resize, right-click, and choose "Extend Volume" or "Shrink Volume" to resize the dynamic disk.

Step 3. Type the volume size that you want to resize in MB. Then click Next.         

Step 4. Click Finish, and you will find the dynamic volume has been resized.

Limits of Disk Management in Resizing Dynamic Volume:

Before Windows Vista, Disk Management has the following limitations to resize dynamic volume.

Features	Windows 2000	Windows Server 2000	Windows XP	Windows Server 2003
Extend system volume/boot volume	-	-	-	-
Extend/shrink simple volume				
Extend/shrink spanned volume				
Extend/shrink mirrored volume	-	-	-	-
Extend/shrink striped volume	-	-	-	-
Extend/shrink RAID-5 volume	-	-	-	-

Tips: Extend the simple volume which was converted from the basic disk of Windows XP/2003 that was upgraded from Windows 2000.

In Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows Server 2008, Disk Management has the following limitations to resize dynamic volume.

Features	Windows Vista	Windows 7	Windows Server 2008
Extend/shrink system volume/boot volume			
Extend/shrink simple volume			
Extend/shrink spanned volume			
Extend/shrink mirrored volume	-	-	-
Extend/shrink striped volume	-	-	-
Extend/shrink RAID-5 volume	-	-	-

EaseUS Partition Master VS Disk Management, Which Is Better

If you are still not sure whether to pick up EaseUS Partition Master or not. The following is the comparison of Disk Management and EaseUS Partition Master when resizing dynamic disks.

Features	Windows 2000/XP/2003 Disk Management	Windows Vista/2008/7 Disk Management	EaseUS Partition Master
Extend system volume/boot volume	-		
Extend simple volume			
Extend spanned volume			
Extend mirrored volume	-	-	
Extend striped volume	-	-	
Extend RAID-5 volume	-	-	
Shrink system volume/boot volume	-		
Shrink simple volume or spanned volume	-		
Shrink mirrored volume, striped volume, or RAID-5 volume	-	-	

Compared to Disk Management, EaseUS Partition Master provides a more convenient and safer way to resize the dynamic disk.

Another Safe Way to Resize Dynamic Disk

To resize dynamic disk partition can also be realized by converting the dynamic disk directly to basic disk and then resizing the partition directly and safely. For a detailed guide, you may refer to:

For different dynamic volumes, the situations are different when converting basic disk back to dynamic:

Simple Volume: After converting and resizing the Simple Volume on a basic disk, you can convert the basic partition back to a Simple Volume in Disk Management without difficulty.

Mirrored Volume: If you want to convert the Mirrored Volume back after being converted to basic disk and resized on a basic disk, at first you need to convert it to Simple Volume in Disk Management, then add mirror with another dynamic disk.

Striped/Spanned/RAID5 Volume: Convert to basic disk feature in EaseUS Partition Master doesn't support Striped Volume, Spanned Volume, and RAID 5 Volume. However, if you want to resize them, you can copy these volumes to the basic disk and then resize the basic disk. By the way, these volumes can be converted to Simple Volume or Mirrored Volume only, as these Striped/Spanned/RAID5 dynamic volumes should be rebuilt in Disk Management.

For the step-by-step instructions, please refer to:

Everything You Want to Know About Dynamic Disk

A dynamic disk is a physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes spanning multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks on the computer.

Basic knowledge of Dynamic Volume:

Simple volume: A volume with disk space from one dynamic disk. The simple volume can be expanded to a spanned volume.

Spanned volume: A spanned volume is created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks. You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 disks. A spanned volume cannot be mirrored and is not fault-tolerant.

Striped volume: A striped volume also known as RAID-0, stores all their data across several disks in stripes. This allows better performance because disk reads and writes are balanced across multiple disks.

Mirrored volume: A mirrored volume is also known as RAID-1, it is the replication of logical disk volumes onto separate physical hard disks in real-time to ensure continuous availability. A mirrored volume is a complete logical representation of separate volume copies. When creating a mirrored volume, you must need two dynamic disks at least. If one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk.

RAID-5 volume: A RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is striped across an array of three or more disks. Parity (a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data after a failure) is also striped across the disk array. If a physical disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity by repairing the RAID-5 volume.

A disk managed by a software RAID provider with support for flexible volume reconfiguration. A dynamic disk uses a partition as a container for volumes; there is no guaranteed mapping.

Dynamic Volume Supported Operating Systems:

Windows 2000 introduced the Logical Disk Manager and the DiskPart command-line tool for dynamic storage. All versions of Windows 2000 support three types of dynamic disk volumes: simple volumes, spanned volumes, and striped volumes.

Dynamic disk applies to the following Operating Systems. The following table describes the support case for each Windows.

Operating System	Simple, Spanned, and Striped Volume	Mirrored Volume	RAID-5 Volume
Windows 2000 Professional		-	-
Windows 2000 Server			
Windows 2000 Advanced Server			
Windows XP Home	-	-	-
Windows XP Professional		-	-
Windows Server 2003 Standard			
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise			
Windows Vista Home Basic	-	-	-
Windows Vista Home Premium	-	-	-
Windows Vista Business		-	-
Windows Vista Enterprise		-	-
Windows Vista Ultimate		-	-
Windows Server 2008			
Windows 7 Starter	-	-	-
Windows 7 Home Basic	-	-	-
Windows 7 Home Premium	-	-	-
Windows 7 Professional			-
Windows 7 Enterprise			-
Windows 7 Ultimate			-

Why Need to Resize Dynamic Disk?

Resizing dynamic disks is helpful for users to make good use of disk space, especially in maximizing computer performance. For example, when the system volume has insufficient disk  space, we want to add some free space for the system volume to make the computer work well. So, we need to resize the bigger dynamic volume to free up unallocated space and extend the system volume.

Conclusion

So if you need to resize, extend, or shrink Dynamic disk on a Windows PC, you can directly vert to the above 2 methods for help:

1. #1. Use EaseUS Partition Master
2. #2. Use Disk Management 

For an easier resolution, take EaseUS Partition Master for help. It provides the easiest resolutions for Windows beginners.

More advanced features are also provided to manage your hard disk by EaseUS Partition Master. Besides partition manager features, EaseUS partition manager software also provides some other features like Partition Recovery Wizard to recover deleted or lost partitions, and Disk & Partition Copy Wizard to upgrade or backup disk.

FAQs About Extending Dynamic Volume

Here, we also listed some hot topics about extending dynamic volume, and if you are interested, follow and find answers here:

1. How do I extend the dynamic disk using DiskPart?

Here are the detailed command lines that you can follow to extend a dynamic disk volume using DiskPart:

• Open DiskPart.
• Type list volume and hit Enter.
• Type select volume * and hit Enter. (Replace * with the dynamic volume.)
• Type extend [size=*] [disk=N] [noerror] and hit Enter. (Replace * with the size in MB you want to extend to the dynamic volume; Replace N with the number of your dynamic disk.)

2. Can I extend the dynamic disk without converting it to Basic?

Yes, sure. You can directly extend a dynamic disk without converting it back to basic by using reliable partition manager software - EaseUS Partition Master, Disk Management, or DiskPart command lines.

3. How do I convert a Dynamic disk without losing data?

Here is a brief list that contains the detailed process of converting a dynamic disk to a basic disk without losing any data by using EaseUS Partition Master:

• Launch EaseUS Partition Master and go to Disk Converter.
• Select "Convert to Basic Disk" and click "Next".
• Select the target dynamic disk and then click "Convert".