Extend Mirrored Dynamic Disk on Windows Server Safely and Indirectly

Before Windows Vista, dynamic disk is a good choice for the people who want to maximize the hard drive performance, especially for some small companies or that for particular use. A dynamic disk is a physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not have, such as support for volumes spanning multiple disks, extend dynamic volume, redundant array of independent disk, etc.

What is dynamic Mirror Volume?

Disk mirroring. Optimized for Redundancy

Mirror Volume uses mirroring to write data to multiple drives. This means that when you write a file, the file is actually written to two disks. The tradeoff with Mirror Volume is cost. With Mirror Volume, you must purchase double the amount of storage space that your data requires.

Minimum number of drives: 2

Strengths: Very high performance; Very high data protection; Very minimal penalty on write performance.

Weaknesses: High redundancy cost overhead; Because all data is duplicated, twice the storage capacity is required.

What is the shortage of dynamic disk and Mirror Volume?

Though compare to basic disk, dynamic disk has many advantages, it has two typical disadvantages. One is that if you convert a basic disk to dynamic, you cannot convert dynamic disk back to basic without data loss, as you need to delete all dynamic volume firstly before converting. The other is that in most conditions the dynamic volume still cannot be extended, especially for System volume, Boot volume, Mirror Volume, so many people would encounter this problem if they need to extend mirrored dynamic disk. More seriously, there is no third-party product can extend mirrored dynamic disk directly.

Common troubles of Windows Server 2003 dynamic disk?

1. Due to Windows limitation, system volume, boot volume, Stripped Volume, Mirror Volume and RAID5 Volume cannot be resized or expanded. So if you use Mirror Volume, you cannot extend mirrored dynamic disk.

2. You cannot convert dynamic disk back to basic without data loss.

3. You cannot backup or clone dynamic volume in Windows Server 2003.

Is there a way to extend mirrored dynamic disk?

The answer is yes and this article will introduce a safe solution to extend mirrored dynamic disk.

Firstly, install and launch EASEUS Partition Master.

Secondly, select the dynamic mirror volume.

Thirdly, choose a target partition on a basic disk.

Fourthly, extend the target partition size.

At last, apply the changes.

Please refer Copy Dynamic Volume to get step by step instruction.

With this method, you can copy dynamic volume to another basic disk and extend the partition size. If you still need to use Mirror Volume, you can convert the target basic disk to dynamic in Disk Management, and then add mirror with another dynamic disk. After this operation, you can extend mirrored dynamic disk successfully. This is the safest method, as it won't crash the original system or data.

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