When you want to manage basic or dynamic disks, one of the tools you can use is Disk Management, which is shown in Figure 13-1. Disk Management also is a snap-in included in Computer Management and can be added to any custom Microsoft Management Console (MMC) you create.

Figure 13-1. Disk Management is the primary tool for managing storage.

Disk Management makes it easy to work with any available internal and external drives on both local and remote systems. When you start Computer Management by tapping or clicking the related option on the Tools menu in Server Manager, you’re automatically connected to the local computer on which you’re running Computer Management. In Computer Management, expand Storage and then select Disk Management. You can now manage the drives on the local system.

To work with a remote system, press and hold or right-click the Computer Management entry in the left pane and select Connect To Another Computer on the shortcut menu. This opens the Select Computer dialog box (shown in Figure 13-2). Type the domain name or IP address of the system whose drives you want to view and then tap or click OK.

Figure 13-2. Select the remote system to manage with Computer Management.

Disk Management has three views:

Volume List and Graphical View are the default views. In Figure 13-10, the Volume List view is in the top-right corner, and the Graphical View is in the bottom-right corner. To change the top view, select View, choose Top, and then select the view you want to use. To change the bottom view, select View, choose Bottom, and then select the view you want to use.

The command-line counterpart to Disk Management is the DiskPart utility. You can use DiskPart to perform all Disk Management tasks. DiskPart is a text-mode command interpreter that you invoke so that you can manage disks, partitions, and volumes. As such, DiskPart has a separate command prompt and its own internal commands. Although earlier releases of DiskPart did not allow you to format partitions, logical drives, and volumes, the version that ships with Windows Server 2012 R2 enables you to do this using the internal format command.

You invoke the DiskPart interpreter by typing diskpart at the command prompt. DiskPart is designed to work with physical hard disks installed on a computer, which can be internal, external, or a mix of both. Although it will list other types of disks—such as CD/DVD drives, removable media, and universal serial bus (USB)–connected flash random access memory (RAM) devices—and enable you to perform some minimal tasks, such as assigning a drive letter, these devices are not supported.

After you invoke DiskPart, you can list available disks, partitions, and volumes by using the following list commands:

Then you must give focus to the disk, partition, or volume you want to work with by selecting it. Giving a disk, partition, or volume focus ensures that any commands you type act only on that disk, partition, or volume. To select a disk, type select disk N, where N is the number of the disk you want to work with. To select a volume, type select volume N, where N is the number of the volume you want to work with. To select a partition, first select its related disk by typing select disk N and then select the partition you want to work with by typing select partition N.

If you use the list commands again after selecting a disk, partition, or volume, you see an asterisk (*) next to the item with focus. When you are finished working with DiskPart, type exit at the DiskPart prompt to return to the standard command prompt.

Using DiskPart: An example shows a sample DiskPart session. As you can see, when you first invoke DiskPart, it shows the operating system and DiskPart version you are using and the name of the computer you are working with. When you list available disks, the output shows you the disk number, status, size, and free space. It also shows the disk-partition style and type. If there’s an asterisk in the Dyn column, the disk is a dynamic disk. Otherwise, it is a basic disk. If there’s an asterisk in the Gpt column, the disk uses the GPT partition style. Otherwise, it is an MBR disk. You’ll find more information on partition styles in “Using the MBR and GPT partition styles” later in this chapter.

C:> diskpart
   Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600
   Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
   On computer: CORPSVR02
   DISKPART> list disk
   Disk ###   Status        Size      Free    Dyn   Gpt
   --------   ----------   -------   ------   ---   ---
     Disk 0   Online       465 GB      0 B     *     *
     Disk 1   Online       292 GB      27 GB
     Disk 2   Online       378 GB      90 GB
   DISKPART> list volume
     Volume ###   Ltr   Label       Fs    Type       Size      Status   Info
     ----------   ---   ---------   ----- -------    -------   ------   ------
     Volume 0      F    HRM_SSS_X64  UDF   DVD-ROM    3525 MB   Healthy
     Volume 1           System Rese  NTFS  Partition  100 MB    Healthy   System
     Volume 2      C                 NTFS  Partition  234 GB    Healthy   Boot
     Volume 3      D    New Volume   REFS  Partition  218 GB    Healthy
     Volume 4      E    Recovery     NTFS  Partition   12 GB    Healthy
     Volume 5      G    Store n Go   FAT32 Removable   28 GB    Healthy
   DISKPART> select disk 0
   Disk 0 is now the selected disk.
   DISKPART> list partition
     Partition ###   Type               Size     Offset
     -------------   ----------------   ------   -------
     Partition 1    Primary             100 MB   1024 KB
     Partition 2    Primary             234 GB   101 MB
     Partition 3    Primary             218 GB   234 GB
     Partition 4    Primary              12 GB   453 GB
   DISKPART> select partition 2
   Partition 2 is now the selected partition.
   DISKPART> list partition
     Partition ###   Type               Size      Offset
     -------------   ----------------   -------   -------
     Partition 1    Primary             100 MB   1024 KB
*    Partition 2    Primary             234 GB   101 MB
     Partition 3    Primary             218 GB   234 GB
     Partition 4    Primary              12 GB   453 GB
   DISKPART> exit
   Leaving DiskPart...
   C:>

Windows Server 2012 R2 supports both Standard Format and Advanced Format hard drives. Standard Format drives have 512 bytes per physical sector and are also referred to as 512b drives. Advanced Format drives have 4,096 bytes per physical sector and are referred to as 512e drives. 512e represents a significant shift for the hard-drive industry, and it allows for large, multi-terabyte drives.

When working with physical disks, keep in mind that disks perform physical media updates in the granularity of their physical sector size. 512b disks work with data 512 bytes at a time; 512e disks work with data 4,096 bytes at a time. Having a larger physical sector size is what enables drive capacities to jump well beyond previous physical capacity limits.

Fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo DriveDesignator

Fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:

Fsutil fsinfo sectorinfo c:

Thanks to hot-swapping and Plug and Play technologies, the process of adding new internal disks is much easier than in the past. If a computer supports hot swapping of disks, you can install new internal disks without having to shut down the computer. Just insert the hard disk drives you want to use. If the computer doesn’t support hot swapping, you need to shut down the computer, insert the drives, and restart the computer.

Either way, after you insert the drives you want to use, log on and access Disk Management in the Computer Management tool or in Server Manager. If the new drives have already been initialized, meaning they have disk signatures, they should be brought online automatically when you select Rescan Disks from the Action menu. If you are working with new drives that haven’t been initialized, meaning they lack a disk signature, when you choose to initialize the new disk, Windows Server 2012 R2 opens the Initialize Disk dialog box. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select either the MBR or GPT partitioning style. When you tap or click OK, Windows writes a disk signature to the disks and initializes the disks with the basic disk type.

If you don’t want to use the Initialize Disk dialog box, you can close it and use Disk Management instead to view and work with the disk. In the Disk List view, the disk is marked with a red downward-pointing arrow icon, the disk’s type is listed as Unknown, and the disk’s status is listed as Not Initialized. You can then press and hold or right-click the disk’s icon and select Online. Press and hold or right-click the disk’s icon again and select Initialize Disk. You can then initialize the disk. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select either the MBR or GPT partitioning style. Tap or click OK so that Windows can write a disk signature and initialize the disk with the basic disk type.

At an elevated, administrator Windows PowerShell prompt, you can use Get-Disk to list available disks and Initialize-Disk to initialize new disks.

The term partition style refers to the method that Windows Server uses to organize partitions on a disk. Two partition styles are available: MBR and GPT. GPT is becoming the primary disk type for Windows Server and is supported by all current editions of Windows and Windows Server.

GPT is recommended for disks larger than 2 terabytes (TBs) on x86 and x64 systems or any disks used on Itanium-based computers. The key difference between the GPT partition style and the MBR partition style has to do with how partition data is stored.

The term storage type refers to the method that Windows Server uses to structure disks and their contents. Windows Server offers several storage types, including basic disk, dynamic disk, removable disk, and virtual disk. The storage type you use doesn’t depend on the processor architecture—it can depend, however, on whether you are working with fixed or nonfixed disks. When you are working with fixed disks, you can use basic, dynamic, or both storage types on any edition of Windows Server, and you can create virtual disks. When you are working with nonfixed disks, the disk has the removable storage type automatically, but generally, you cannot create a virtual disk.

Using and converting basic and dynamic disks

You can’t use dynamic disks on portable computers. When you are working with desktop computers and servers, you only can use dynamic disks with drives connected to internal controllers (as well as some eSATA controllers). Although you can’t use dynamic disks with portable or removable drives on these computers, you can connect such a drive to an internal controller or a recognized eSATA controller and then use Disk Management to import the drive.

Basic disks and dynamic disks are managed in different ways. For basic disks, you use primary and extended partitions. Extended partitions can contain logical drives. Dynamic disks enable you to combine disks to create spanned volumes, to mirror disks to create mirrored volumes, and to stripe disks by using RAID 0 to create striped volumes. You can also create RAID-5 volumes for high reliability on dynamic disks.

You can change storage types from basic to dynamic and from dynamic to basic. When you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, existing partitions are changed to volumes of the appropriate type automatically, and existing data is not lost. Converting a dynamic disk to a basic disk isn’t so easy and can’t be done without taking some drastic measures. You must delete the volumes on the dynamic disk before you can change the disk back to a basic disk. Deleting the volumes destroys all the information they contain, and the only way to get it back is to restore the data from backup.

You should consider a number of things when you want to change the storage type from basic to dynamic. To be converted successfully, an MBR disk must have 1 megabyte (MB) of free space at the end of the disk. This space is used for the dynamic disk database, which tracks volume information. Without this free space at the end of the disk, the conversion will fail. Because both Disk Management and DiskPart reserve this space automatically, you need to be concerned about whether this space is available only if you used third-party disk management utilities. However, if the disk was formatted using another version of the Windows operating system, this space might not be available either.

A GPT disk must have contiguous, recognized data partitions to be converted successfully. If the GPT disk contains partitions that the Windows operating system doesn’t recognize, such as those created by another operating system, you won’t be able to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. When you convert a GPT disk, the Windows operating system creates LDM Metadata and LDM Data partitions as discussed in “LDM metadata and LDM data partitions” later in this chapter. GPT disks that are dynamic store the dynamic disk database in the LDM partitions instead of out at the end of the drive as on an MBR disk.

You can’t convert a disk if the system or boot partition uses software RAID. You must stop using the software RAID before you convert the disk.

Both Disk Management and DiskPart can be used to change the storage type.

Using Disk Management to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk To use Disk Management to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, start Computer Management from the Administrative Tools menu or by typing compmgmt.msc at the command line, expand the Storage node, and then select Disk Management. In Disk Management, press and hold or right-click a basic disk that you want to convert, either in Disk List view or in the left pane of Graphical View, and select Convert To Dynamic Disk.

In the Convert To Dynamic Disk dialog box (shown in Figure 13-3), select the disks you want to convert. If you’re converting a RAID volume, be sure to select all the basic disks in the set because they must be converted together. Tap or click OK when you’re ready to continue.

Figure 13-3. Select the disks to convert.

Next, as shown in Figure 13-4, the Disks To Convert dialog box shows the disks you’re converting along with details of the disk contents. To see the drive letters and mount points that are associated with a disk, select the disk in the Disks list and then tap or click Details. If a disk cannot be converted for some reason, the Will Convert column will show No, and the Disk Contents column will provide a reason. You must correct whatever problem is noted before you can convert the disk.

When you’re ready to start the conversion, tap or click Convert. Disk Management then warns you that after you finish the conversion, you won’t be able to boot previous versions of the Windows operating system from volumes on the selected disks. Tap or click Yes to continue. If a selected drive contains the boot partition, system partition, or a partition in use, you see another warning, telling you that the computer will need to be rebooted to complete the conversion process.

Figure 13-4. Confirm that the disk can be converted.

Using DiskPart to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk To use DiskPart to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, invoke DiskPart by typing diskpart and then select the disk you want to convert. For example, if you want to convert disk 2, type select disk 2. After the disk is selected, you can convert it from basic to dynamic by typing convert dynamic.

Using Disk Management to change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk To use Disk Management to change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk, you must first delete all dynamic volumes on the disk. Then press and hold or right-click the disk and select Convert To Basic Disk. This changes the dynamic disk to a basic disk, and you can then create new partitions and logical drives on the disk.

Using DiskPart to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk To use DiskPart to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk, invoke DiskPart by typing diskpart and then select the disk you want to convert. For example, if you want to convert disk 2, type select disk 2. If there are any existing volumes on the disk, you must delete them. You can do this by typing clean. However, be sure to move any data the disk contains to another disk prior to deleting the disk volumes.

After you delete all the volumes on the disk, you can convert the disk from dynamic to basic by typing convert basic. This changes the dynamic disk to a basic disk, and you can then create new partitions and logical drives on the disk.

You can use Disk Management to create, attach, and detach virtual hard disks. To create a virtual hard disk, choose Create VHD from the Action menu. In the Create And Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box, shown in Figure 13-5, tap or click Browse. Use the Browse Virtual Disk Files dialog box to select where you want to create the .vhd file for the virtual hard disk. Type a name for the virtual hard disk and then tap or click Save.

Figure 13-5. Specify the location, format, and type for the virtual hard disk.

In the Virtual Hard Disk Size field, enter the size of the disk in MB, GB, or TB. Keep in mind that disk sizes aren’t necessarily fixed.

Next, choose a virtual hard disk format. Two virtual hard disk formats are available:

Use the Virtual Hard Disk Type options to specify whether the size of the VHD dynamically expands to its fixed maximum size as data is saved to it or uses a fixed amount of space regardless of the amount of data stored on it. When you tap or click OK, Disk Management creates the virtual hard disk.

The VHD is attached automatically and added as a new disk. To initialize the disk for use, press and hold or right-click the disk entry in Graphical View and then tap or click Initialize Disk. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, shown in Figure 13-6, the disk is selected for initialization. Specify the disk type as MBR or GPT and then tap or click OK.

Figure 13-6. Specify the disk to initialize and set its partition style.

After initializing the disk, press and hold or right-click the unpartitioned space on the disk and create a volume of the appropriate type. After you create the volume, the VHD is available for use.

After you create, attach, initialize, and format a VHD, you can work with a virtual disk in much the same way as you work with other disks. You can write data to and read data from a VHD. You can boot the computer from a VHD. You can take a VHD offline or put a VHD online by pressing and holding or right-clicking the disk entry in Graphical View and selecting Offline or Online, respectively. If you no longer want to use a VHD, you can detach it by pressing and holding or right-clicking the disk entry in Graphical View, selecting Detach VHD, and then tapping or clicking OK in the Detach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box.

You also can use VHDs created with other programs. If you created a VHD using another program or have a detached VHD you want to attach, you can work with the VHD by completing the following steps:

On both MBR and GPT disks, you can convert FAT or FAT32 partitions, logical drives, and volumes to NTFS by using the Convert command. This preserves the file and directory structure without the need to reformat. Before you use Convert, you should check to see whether the volume is being used as the active boot volume or is a system volume containing the operating system. If it is a system volume, Convert must have exclusive access to the volume before it can begin the conversion. Because exclusive access to boot or system volumes can be obtained only during startup, you see a prompt asking whether you want to schedule the drive to be converted the next time the system starts.

As part of the preparation for conversion, you should check to see whether there’s enough free space to perform the conversion. You need a block of free space that’s about 25 percent of the total space the volume uses. For example, if the volume stores 12 GBs of data, you should have about 3 GBs of free space. Convert checks for this free space before running, and if there isn’t enough, it won’t convert the volume.

You run Convert at the command line. Its syntax is as follows:

convert volume /FS:NTFS

Here, volume is the drive letter followed by a colon, drive path, or volume name. So, for instance, if you want to convert the E drive to NTFS, type convert e: /fs:ntfs. This starts Convert. As shown in the following example, Convert checks the current file system type and then prompts you to enter the existing volume label for the drive:

The type of the file system is FAT32.
Enter current volume label for drive E:

As long as you enter the correct volume label, Convert continues as shown in the following example:

Volume CORPDATA created 4/10/2014 12:53 PM
Volume Serial Number is AA6B-CEDE
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
   91,827,680 KB total disk space.
   91,827,672 KB are available.
   8,192 bytes in each allocation unit.
   11,478,460 total allocation units on disk.
   11,478,459 allocation units available on disk.
Determining disk space required for file system conversion...
Total disk space:            91927860 KB
Free space on volume:        91929680 KB
Space required for conversion:      12080460 KB
Converting file system
Conversion complete

Here, Convert examines the file and folder structure and then determines how much disk space is needed for the conversion. If there is enough free space, Convert performs the conversion. Otherwise, it exits with an error, stating there isn’t enough free space to complete the conversion.

Several additional parameters are available, including /v, which tells Convert to display detailed information during the conversion, and /x, which tells Convert to force the partition or volume to dismount before the conversion if necessary. You can’t dismount a boot or system drive—these drives can be converted only when the system is restarted.

On converted boot and system volumes, Convert applies the same default security as that applied during Windows setup. On other volumes, Convert sets security so that the Users group has access but doesn’t give access to the special Everyone group. If you don’t want security to be set, you can use the /Nosecurity parameter. This parameter tells Convert to remove all security attributes and make all files and directories on the disk accessible to the Everyone group. In addition, you can use the /Cvtarea parameter to set the name of a contiguous file in the root directory to be a placeholder for NTFS system files.

Removable is the standard disk type associated with removable storage devices. Working with removable disks is similar to working with fixed disks. Removable storage devices can be formatted by using exFAT, FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS. All current versions of the Windows operating system also support exFAT with removable storage devices.

The exFAT file system is the next-generation file system in the FAT (FAT12/16, FAT32) family. exFAT is essentially FAT64. Although it retains the ease-of-use advantages of FAT32, exFAT overcomes the FAT32 4 GB file size limit and the FAT32 32 GB partition size limit on Windows systems. exFAT also supports allocation unit sizes of up to 32,768 KBs. exFAT is designed so that it can be used with and easily moved between any compliant operating system or device.

Removable disks support network file and folder sharing. You configure sharing on removable disks in the same way you configure standard file sharing. You can assign share permissions, configure caching options for offline file use, and limit the number of simultaneous users. You can share an entire removable disk or share individual folders stored on the removable disk. You can also create multiple share instances.

Removable disks differ from standard NTFS sharing in that there isn’t an extensive underlying security architecture. With exFAT, FAT, or FAT32, the stored folders and files have only basic attributes, including read-only and hidden attribute flags that you can set and basic permissions for read and read/write access for specific users.

The Disk Management user interface has one set of dialog boxes and wizards for both partitions and volumes. The first three volumes on a basic drive are created automatically as primary partitions. If you try to create a fourth volume on a basic drive, the remaining free space on the drive is converted automatically to an extended partition with a logical drive of the size you designate by using the new volume feature it created in the extended partition. Any subsequent volumes are created in the extended partitions and logical drives automatically.

In Disk Management, you create partitions, logical drives, and simple volumes by following these steps:

Before you can use a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, you must format it. Formatting creates the file structures necessary to work with files and folders. If you want to clean out a partition, logical drive, or volume and remove all existing data, you can use formatting to do this as well.

To format a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, follow these steps:

Each primary partition, logical drive, or volume on a disk can have one drive letter and one or more drive paths associated with it. You can assign, change, or remove driver letters and mount points at any time without having to restart the computer. Windows Server 2012 R2 also allows you to change the drive letter associated with CD/DVD-ROM drives. You cannot, however, change or remove the drive letter of a system volume, boot volume, or any volume that contains a paging file. In addition, on GPT disks, you can assign drive letters only to primary partitions. You cannot assign drive letters to other types of partitions on GPT disks.

To add, change, or remove a drive letter, press and hold or right-click the primary partition, logical drive, or volume in Disk Management and choose Change Drive Letter And Paths. This opens the dialog box shown in Figure 13-11.

Figure 13-11. Configure the drive letter used for the partition, drive, or volume.

Any current drive letter and mount points associated with the selected drive are displayed. You have the following options:

After you make a change, the new drive letter or mount point assignment is made automatically as long as the volume or partition is not in use. If the partition or volume is in use, Windows Server 2012 R2 displays the warning shown in Figure 13-12.

This prompt tells you the drive is in use and the new drive letter won’t be assigned until you restart the computer. At this point, you can tap or click No to cancel the change or tap or click Yes to accept the change and continue. If you cancel the change, the new drive letter is not assigned. If you accept the change and continue, the old drive letter remains available for use by users and programs until you restart the computer. When you restart the computer, the new drive letter is applied.

Figure 13-12. New drive letters are not assigned to in-use drives until you restart the computer.

Any volume or partition can be mounted to an empty NTFS folder as long as the folder is on a fixed disk drive rather than a removable media drive. A volume or partition mounted in such a way is called a mount point. Each volume or partition can have multiple mount points associated with it. For example, you could mount a volume to the root folder of the C drive as both C:EngData and C:DevData, giving the appearance that these are separate folders.

The real value of mount points, however, lies in how they give you the capability to create the appearance of a single file system from multiple hard disk drives without having to use spanned volumes. Consider the following scenario: A department file server has four data drives—drive 1, drive 2, drive 3, and drive 4. Rather than mount the drives as D, E, F, and G, you decide it would be easier for users to work with the drives if they were all mounted as folders of the system drive, which is C:Data. You mount drive 1 to C:DataUserData, drive 2 to C:DataCorpData, drive 3 to C:DataProjects, and drive 4 to C:DataHistory. If you then shared the C:Data folder, users could access all the drives by using a single share.

To add or remove a mount point, press and hold or right-click the volume or partition in Disk Management and choose Change Drive Letter And Paths. This opens the Change Drive Letter And Paths For dialog box (as shown in Figure 13-13), which shows any current mount point and mount points associated with the selected drive.

Figure 13-13. Add or remove a mount point.

You now have the following options:

You can extend volumes on both basic and dynamic disks by using either Disk Management or DiskPart. This is handy if you create a partition that’s too small and you want to extend it so that you have more space for programs and data. In extending a volume, you convert areas of unallocated space and add them to the existing volume. For spanned volumes on dynamic disks, the space can come from any available dynamic disk, not only those on which the volume was originally created. Thus, you can combine areas of free space on multiple dynamic disks and use those areas to increase the size of an existing volume.

Before you try to extend a volume, be aware of several limitations. First, you can extend simple and spanned volumes only if they are formatted and the file system is NTFS (and in some instances, ReFS). You can’t extend striped volumes. You can’t extend volumes that aren’t formatted or that are formatted with FAT, FAT32, or exFAT. You can extend NTFS (and in some instances, ReFS) volumes on both basic and dynamic disks by using either Disk Management or DiskPart.

By using Disk Management, you can extend a simple or spanned volume by following these steps:

By using DiskPart, you can extend partitions by using the command line. To extend a partition, invoke DiskPart by typing diskpart at the command prompt. List the disks on the computer by typing list disk. After you check the free space of each disk, select the disk by typing select disk N, where N is the disk you want to work with. Next, list the partitions on the selected disk by typing list partition. Select the last partition in the list by typing select partition N, where N is the partition you want to work with.

Now that you’ve selected a partition, you can extend it. To extend the partition to the end of the disk, type extend. To extend the partition by a set amount, type extend size=N, where N is the amount of space to add in megabytes. For example, if you want to add 90 GBs to the partition, type extend size=90000.

Extending disks shows an actual DiskPart session in which a disk is extended. You can use this as an example to help you understand the process of extending disks. Here, disk 2 has 119 GBs of free space, and its primary partition is extended so that it fills the disk.

C:> diskpart
     Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600
     Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
     On computer: CORPSVR02
     DISKPART> list disk
       Disk ###  Status   Size    Free   Dyn    Gpt
       --------  --------  -----  -----   ---   ---
       Disk 0    Online   1560 GB 504 GB     *     *
       Disk 1    Online   1290 GB   0 B
       Disk 2    Online   370 GB  119 GB
     DISKPART> select disk 2
     Disk 2 is now the selected disk.
     DISKPART> list partition
       Partition ###   Type      Size     Offset
       -------------   --------- -------  -------
       Partition 1     Primary   370 GB    32 KB
     DISKPART> select partition 1
     Partition 1 is now the selected partition.
     DISKPART> extend
     DiskPart successfully extended the partition.
     DISKPART> exit
     Leaving DiskPart...
     C:>

To extend a partition on a dynamic disk to free space on another disk, you use the following syntax:

extend size=X disk=Y

Here, size=X sets the amount of space to use in megabytes, and disk=Y sets the number of the disk from which to allocate the space. Following this, you could allocate 50 GBs of free space from disk 0 to the selected disk in the previous example (disk 2) by using the following command:

extend size=50000 disk=0

You can shrink volumes on both basic and dynamic disks by using either Disk Management or DiskPart. This is handy if you create a partition that’s too large and you want to shrink it so that you have more space for other partitions. In shrinking a volume, you convert areas of allocated but unused space to free space by removing them from an existing volume.

As with extending volumes, several limitations apply to shrinking volumes. First, you can shrink simple and spanned volumes only if they are formatted and the file system is NTFS. You can’t shrink striped volumes. You can’t shrink volumes that are formatted with FAT, FAT32, exFAT, or ReFS. However, you can shrink volumes that have not been formatted. If a volume is heavily fragmented, you might have to defragment the volume to free up additional space before shrinking.

By using Disk Management, you can shrink a simple or spanned volume by following these steps:

By using DiskPart, you can shrink partitions by using the command line. To shrink an NTFS-formatted partition, invoke DiskPart by typing diskpart at the command prompt. List the disks on the computer by typing list disk. After you check the free space of each disk, select the disk by typing select disk N, where N is the disk you want to work with. Next, list the partitions on the selected disk by typing list partition. Select the last partition in the list by typing select partition N, where N is the partition you want to work with.

Now that you’ve selected a partition, you can shrink it. To determine the maximum amount of space by which you can shrink the disk, type shrink querymax. To shrink the partition by the maximum amount, type shrink. To shrink the partition by a set amount, type shrink desired=N, where N is the amount of space to remove in megabytes. For example, if you want to remove 225 GBs from the partition, type shrink desired=225000.

Shrinking disks shows an actual DiskPart session in which you shrink a disk. You can use this as an example to help you understand the process of shrinking disks. Here, you determine that 40 GBs of space are available for shrinking on the selected partition and then you shrink the partition by 32 GBs.

C:> diskpart
   Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600
   Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
     On computer: CORPSVR02
     DISKPART> list disk
       Disk ###  Status   Size    Free   Dyn    Gpt
       --------  --------  -----  -----   ---   ---
       Disk 0    Online   1560 GB 504 GB    *     *
       Disk 1    Online   1290 GB   0 B
       Disk 2    Online   489 GB    0 B
     DISKPART> select disk 2
     Disk 2 is now the selected disk.
     DISKPART> list partition
       Partition ###   Type      Size     Offset
       -------------   --------- -------  -------
       Partition 1     Primary   489 GB    32 KB
     DISKPART> select partition 1
     Partition 1 is now the selected partition.
     DISKPART> shrink querymax
     The maximum number of reclaimable bytes is: 40 GB
     DISKPART> shrink desired=32000
     DiskPart successfully shrunk the partition by: 32000 MB
     DISKPART> exit
     Leaving DiskPart...
     C:>

Deleting a partition, logical drive, or volume removes the associated file system and all associated data. When you delete a logical drive, the logical drive is removed from the associated extended partition, and its space is marked as free. When you delete a partition or volume, the entire partition or volume is deleted, and its space is marked as Unallocated. If you want to delete an extended partition that contains logical drives, however, you must delete the logical drives before trying to delete the extended partition.

In Disk Management, you can delete a partition, logical drive, or volume by pressing and holding or right-clicking it and then choosing Delete Partition, Delete Logical Drive, or Delete Volume, as appropriate. When prompted to confirm the action, tap or click Yes.

EFI-based computers must have one GPT disk that contains an ESP. This partition is similar to the system volume on a computer with an MBR boot disk in that it contains the files that are required to start the operating system. Windows Server 2012 R2 creates the ESP during setup and formats it by using FAT. Normally, the partition is sized so that it is at least 100 MBs in size or 1 percent of the disk, up to a maximum size of 1,000 MBs.

The ESP is shown in Disk Management but isn’t assigned a drive letter or mount point. All Disk Management commands associated with the ESP are disabled, however, and you cannot store data on it, assign a drive letter to it, or delete it by using Disk Management or DiskPart. The ESP has several directories that contain the operating system boot loader, such as Ia64ldr.efi, and other files that are necessary to start the operating system in addition to utilities such as Diskpart.efi and Nvrboot.efi. Other directories are created as necessary by the operating system.

The only way to access these directories is to use the EFI firmware’s Boot Manager or the MountVol command. If you access the ESP, don’t make changes, additions, or deletions unless you’ve been specifically directed to by a Microsoft Knowledge Base article or other official documentation by an OEM vendor. Any changes you make could prevent the system from starting.

EFI-based computers that use GPT for boot must have an MSR partition on every GPT disk. The MSR partition contains additional space the operating system might need to perform disk operations. For example, when you convert a basic GPT disk to a dynamic GPT disk, the Windows operating system uses 1 MB of the MSR partition space to create the LDM Metadata partition, which is required for the conversion.

The MSR partition is not shown in Disk Management and does not receive a drive letter or mount point. The Windows operating system creates the MSR partition automatically. For the boot disk, it is created along with the ESP when you install the operating system. An MSR partition is also created automatically when a disk is converted from MBR to GPT and any time you access a GPT disk that doesn’t already have an MSR partition in Disk Management or DiskPart.

If a GPT disk contains an ESP as the first partition on the disk, the MSR partition is usually the second partition on the disk. If a GPT disk does not contain an ESP, the MSR partition is typically the first partition on the disk. However, if a disk already has a primary partition at the beginning of the disk, the MSR partition is placed at the end of the disk.

The MSR partition is sized according to the size of the associated disk. For disks up to 16 GBs in size, it normally is 32 MBs in size. For all other disks, it normally is 128 MBs in size.

You create primary partitions on basic disks to store data. GPT disks support up to 128 partitions, which can be a mix of required and optional partitions. Every primary partition you create appears in the GUID partition entry array within the GPT header. If you convert a basic disk that contains primary partitions to a dynamic disk, the primary partitions become simple volumes, and information about them is then stored in the dynamic disk database and not in the GUID partition entry array.

To create a primary partition, complete the following steps:

Windows Server 2012 R2 creates LDM Metadata and LDM Data partitions when you convert a basic GPT disk to a dynamic GPT disk. The LDM Metadata partition is 1 MB in size and is used to store the partitioning information needed for the conversion. The LDM Data partition is the partition in which the actual dynamic volumes are created.

The LDM Data partition represents sections of unallocated space on the converted disk and sections that had basic partitions that are now dynamic volumes. For example, if a disk had a primary boot partition that spanned the whole disk, the converted disk will have a single LDM Data partition. If a disk had a boot partition and other primary partitions, it will have two LDM Data partitions after the conversion: one for the boot volume and one for the rest of the partitions. Although the LDM Metadata and LDM Data partitions are not shown in Disk Management and do not receive drive letters or mount points, you can use this space by creating primary partitions as discussed in the previous section.

GPT disks can have partitions that are specific to OEM implementations, and your vendor documentation should describe what they are used for. The Windows operating system might display these partitions in Disk Management as Healthy (Unknown Partition). You cannot, however, manipulate these partitions in Disk Management or DiskPart. In addition, if an unknown partition lies between two known partitions on a GPT disk, you typically can’t convert the disk from the basic disk type to the dynamic disk type.

You create simple and spanned volumes in much the same way. The differences between these volume types are subtle:

If you later need more space, you can extend a simple or spanned volume type by using Disk Management. Here, you select an area of free space on any available disk and add it to the volume. When you extend a simple volume onto other disks, it becomes a spanned volume. Any volume that you want to extend should be formatted by using NTFS or ReFS because only NTFS and ReFS volumes can be extended.

Simple and spanned volumes aren’t fault tolerant. If you create a volume that spans disks and one of those disks fails, you won’t be able to access the volume. Any data on the volume will be lost. You must restore the data from backup after you replace the failed drive and re-create the volume.

To create a simple or spanned volume, complete the following steps:

RAID level 0 is disk striping. With disk striping, two or more volumes—each on a separate drive—are configured as a striped set. Unlike spanning, Windows breaks the data to be written into blocks called stripes and then writes the stripes sequentially to all disks in the set. So, if there are three disks in the set, Windows writes part of the data to the first disk, part of the data to the second disk, and part of the data to the third disk; this process of alternating among the disks is called striping.

Although the boot and system volumes shouldn’t be part of a striped set, you can place volumes for a striped set on up to 32 drives, but in most circumstances, sets with 2 to 5 volumes offer the best performance improvements. When 3 to 32 drives are used, the major advantage of disk striping is speed. Data can be accessed on multiple disks by using multiple drive heads, which improves performance considerably. When you try to use more than 32 drives, the performance improvement decreases significantly.

When you create striped sets, you want to use volumes that are approximately the same size. Disk Management bases the overall size of the striped set on the smallest volume size. Specifically, the maximum size of the striped set is a multiple of the smallest volume size. For example, if the smallest volume is 100 GBs, the maximum size for a three-disk striped set is 300 GBs.

You can maximize performance by using disks that are on separate disk controllers. This enables the system to access the drives simultaneously. Keep in mind that this configuration offers no fault tolerance. If any hard disk drive in the striped set fails, the striped set can no longer be used, which essentially means that all data in the striped set is lost. You need to re-create the striped set and restore the data from backups.

You can create a striped set by following these steps:

After you create a striped volume, you can use the volume just like any other volume. You can’t extend a striped set after it’s created. Therefore, you should carefully consider the setup before you implement it.

Simple disks are the easiest to troubleshoot and recover because only one disk is involved. Spanned or striped disks, however, have multiple disks, and the failure of any one disk makes the entire volume unusable. The drive status might show as Missing, Failed, Online (Errors), Offline, or Unreadable.

The Missing (and sometimes Offline) status usually happens if drives have been disconnected or powered off. If the drives are part of an external storage device, check the storage device to ensure that it is connected properly and has power. Reconnecting the storage device or turning on the power should make the drives accessible. You then must start Disk Management and rescan the disks by selecting Rescan Disks from the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes, press and hold or right-click the drive that was missing and then choose Reactivate.

The Failed, Online (Errors), and Unreadable statuses indicate input/output (I/O) problems with the drive. As before, try rescanning the drive and then try to reactivate it. If the drive doesn’t come back to the Healthy state, you might need to replace it.

One of the advantages that dynamic disks have over basic disks is that you can easily move them from one computer to another. For example, if, after setting up a server, you decide that you don’t really need its two additional hard disk drives, you could move them to another server where they could be used better. Before you move disks, you should access Disk Management on the server where the dynamic disks are currently installed and check their status. The status should be Healthy. If it isn’t, you should fix any problems before moving the disks.

Next, check to see whether any dynamic disks that you want to move are part of a spanned, extended, mirrored, striped, or RAID-5 set. If they are, you should make a note of which disks are part of which set and plan to move all disks in a set together. If you are moving only part of a disk set, you should be aware of the consequences. For spanned, extended, or striped volumes, moving only part of the set makes the related volumes unusable on the current computer and on the computer to which you are planning to move the disks. If you plan to move only one disk of a mirrored volume, you should break the mirror before you move it. This ensures that you can keep using the disks on both computers. For RAID-5 volumes, you should move all the disks in the set if possible. If you move only part of the RAID-5 set, you might find that you can’t use the set on either computer.

To move the disks, open Computer Management and then, in the left pane, select Device Manager. In the Device List, expand Disk Drives. This shows a list of all the physical disk drives on the computer. Press and hold or right-click each disk that you want to move and then select Uninstall. If you are unsure which disks to uninstall, press and hold or right-click each disk and select Properties. In the Properties dialog box, click the Volumes tab and then choose Populate. This shows you the volumes on the selected disk. In Computer Management, select Disk Management. Press and hold or right-click each disk that you want to move and then select Remove Disk.

After you perform these procedures, you can move the dynamic disks. If the disks are hot swappable and this feature is supported on both computers, remove the disks from the original computer and then install them on the destination computer. Otherwise, turn off both computers, remove the drives from the original computer, and then install them on the destination computer. When you’re finished, restart the computers. On the destination computer, access Disk Management and then select Rescan Disks on the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes scanning the disks, press and hold or right-click any disk marked Foreign and tap or click Import. You should now be able to access the disks and their volumes on the destination computer.

For RAID 1, disk mirroring, you configure two volumes on two drives identically. Data is written to both drives. If one drive fails, no data is lost because the other drive contains the data. After you repair or replace the failed drive, you can restore full mirroring so that the volume is once again fault tolerant.

By using disk mirroring, you gain the advantage of redundancy. Because disk mirroring doesn’t write parity information, mirrored volumes can usually offer better write performance than disk striping with parity. The key drawback, however, is that disk mirroring has a 50 percent overhead, meaning it effectively cuts the amount of storage space in half. For example, to mirror a 750 GB drive, you need another 750 GB drive. That means you use 1,500 GBs of space to store 750 GBs of information.

As with disk striping, you’ll often want the mirrored disks to be on separate disk controllers. This provides redundancy for the disk controllers. If one of the disk controllers fails, the disk on the other controller is still available. When you use two disk controllers to duplicate data, you’re using a technique known as disk duplexing rather than disk mirroring—but why mince words?

You can create a mirrored set either by using two new disks or by adding a mirror to an existing volume. As with other RAID techniques, mirroring is transparent to users. Users see the mirrored set as a single volume that they can access and use like any other drive.

Disk mirroring is often used to mirror boot and system volumes. Mirroring these volumes ensures that you can boot the server in case of a single drive failure.

Partition ###   Type         Size         Offset
-------------   -----------------------   -------
Partition 1     System       316 MB       32 KB
Partition 2     Primary      9992 MB      312 MB
Partition 3     Reserved     32 MB        9 GB

RAID 5, disk striping with parity, offers fault tolerance with less overhead and better read performance than disk mirroring. To configure RAID 5, you use three or more volumes, each on a separate drive, as a striped set, similar to RAID 0. Unlike RAID 0, however, RAID 5 adds parity error checking to ensure that the failure of a single drive won’t bring down the entire drive set. In the event of a single drive failure, the set continues to function with disk operations directed at the remaining disks in the set. The parity information can also be used to recover the data by using a process called regeneration.

RAID 5 works like this: Each time the operating system writes to a RAID-5 volume, the data is written across all the disks in the set. Parity information for the data, used for error checking and correction, is written to disk as well, but it’s always written on a separate disk from the one used to write the data. For example, if you are using a three-volume RAID-5 set and save a file, the individual data bytes of the file are written to each of the disks in the set. Parity information is written as well but not to the same disk as one of the individual data bytes. Thus, a disk in the set could have a chunk of the data or the corresponding parity information, but not both. This, in turn, means that the loss of one disk from the set doesn’t cause the entire set to fail.

Like any type of RAID, RAID 5 has its drawbacks. First, if multiple drives in the set fail, the entire set will fail and you won’t be able to regenerate the set from the parity information. Why? If multiple drives fail, there won’t be enough parity information to use to recover the set. Second, having to generate and write parity information every time data is written to disk slows down the write process (and, in the case of software RAID, reduces processing power). To compensate for the performance hit, hardware RAID controllers have their own processors that handle the necessary processing—and this is why hardware RAID is preferred over software RAID.

Okay, so RAID 5 gives you fault tolerance at some cost to performance. It does, however, have less overhead than RAID 1. By using RAID 1, you have 50 percent overhead, which effectively cuts the amount of storage space in half. By using RAID 5, the overhead depends on the number of disks in the RAID set. With three disks, the overhead is about one-third. If you have three 750 GB drives using RAID 5, you use 2250 GBs of space to store about 1,500 GBs of information. If you have additional disks, the overhead is reduced incrementally but not significantly.

To create a RAID-5 set, start Disk Management. In Graphical View, press and hold or right-click an area marked Unallocated on a dynamic disk and then choose New RAID-5 Volume. This starts the New RAID-5 Volume Wizard. Tap or click Next. Create the volume as described in “Creating a simple or spanned volume” earlier in this chapter. The key difference is that you must select free space on three or more dynamic drives.

When you tap or click Finish, you return to the main Disk Management window and Disk Management creates the RAID-5 set. During the creation of the set, you see a status of Resynching. This tells you that Disk Management is creating the RAID-5 set. When this process finishes, you have three or more identical volumes, all of which show the same drive letter in Disk Management. Users, however, see the RAID-5 set as a single volume. The volume status should be listed as Healthy. This is the normal status for volumes. If the status changes, you might need to repair or regenerate the RAID-5 set as discussed in “Resolving problems with RAID-5 sets” later in this chapter.

Windows Server 2012 R2 provides two ways to stop mirroring. You can break a mirrored set, which creates two separate but identical volumes, or you can remove a mirror, which deletes all the data on the removed mirror.

To break a mirrored set, follow these steps:

To remove a mirror, follow these steps:

Occasionally, data on mirrored volumes can get out of sync. Typically, this happens if one of the drives in the set goes offline or experiences temporary I/O problems and, as a result, data can be written only to the drive that’s online. To reestablish mirroring, you must bring both drives online and then resynchronize the mirror, but you must rebuild the set using a disk with the same partition style—either MBR or GPT. The corrective action you take depends on the drive status.

The Missing or Offline status usually happens if drives have been disconnected or powered off. If the drives are part of an external storage device, check the storage device to ensure that it is connected properly and has power. Reconnecting the storage device or turning on the power should make the drives accessible. You then must start Disk Management and rescan the missing drive by selecting Rescan Disks on the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes, press and hold or right-click the drive and choose Reactivate Volume. The drive status should change to Regenerating and then to Healthy. If the volume doesn’t return to the Healthy status, press and hold or right-click the volume and then choose Resynchronize Mirror.

A status of Failed, Online (Errors), or Unreadable indicates I/O problems with the drive. As before, try rescanning the drive and then try to reactivate the drive. The drive status should change to Regenerating and then to Healthy. If the volume doesn’t return to the Healthy status, press and hold or right-click the volume and then choose Resynchronize Mirror.

If these actions don’t work, you must remove the failed mirror, replace the bad drive, and then rebuild the mirror. To do this, follow these steps:

When you mirror a system volume, an entry that enables you to boot to the secondary mirror is added to the system’s boot configuration data, so if a system fails to boot to the primary system volume, restart the system and select Boot Mirror - Secondary Plex for the operating system you want to start. The system should start up normally. After you successfully boot the system to the secondary drive, you can schedule the maintenance necessary to rebuild the mirror if desired.

Most problems with RAID-5 sets have to do with the intermittent or permanent failure of a drive. If one of the drives in the set goes offline or experiences temporary I/O problems, parity data cannot be properly written to the set and, as a result, the set’s status shows as Failed Redundancy and the failed volume’s status changes to Missing, Offline, or Online (Errors).

You must bring all drives in the RAID-5 set online. If the status of the problem volume is Missing or Offline, make sure that the drive has power and is connected properly. You then must start Disk Management and rescan the missing drive by choosing Rescan Disks from the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes, press and hold or right-click the drive and choose Reactivate. The drive status should change to Regenerating and then to Healthy. If the volume doesn’t return to the Healthy status, press and hold or right-click the volume and then tap or click Regenerate Parity.

A status of Failed, Online (Errors), or Unreadable indicates I/O problems with the drive. As before, try rescanning the drive and then try to reactivate the drive. The drive status should change to Regenerating and then to Healthy. If the volume doesn’t return to the Healthy status, press and hold or right-click the volume and then tap or click Regenerate Parity.

If one of the drives still won’t come back online, you must repair the failed region of the RAID-5 set. Press and hold or right-click the failed volume and then select Remove Volume. You now must press and hold or right-click an unallocated space on a separate dynamic disk with the same partition style—either MBR or GPT—and choose Repair Volume. This space must be at least as large as the region to repair, and it can’t be on a drive the RAID-5 set is already using. If you don’t have enough space, Repair Volume is unavailable and you must free space by shrinking a volume, deleting other volumes, or replacing the failed drive.