Книга: Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage, Security, & Networking Pocket Consultant

Using basic and dynamic disks

Using basic and dynamic disks

Basic, dynamic, and virtual disk configurations can be used with both legacy storage approaches and standards-based storage. Normally, Windows Server 2012 R2 disk partitions are initialized as basic disks. The exception is when you want to use software-based RAID instead of standards-based storage.

With software-based RAID, you can’t create new fault-tolerant drive sets by using the basic disk type. You need to convert to dynamic disks and then create volumes that use striping, mirroring, or striping with parity (referred to as RAID 0, 1, and 5, respectively). The fault-tolerant features and the ability to modify disks without having to restart the computer are the key capabilities that distinguish dynamic disks from basic disks. Other features available on a disk depend on the disk formatting.

You can use both basic and dynamic disks on the same computer; however, volume sets must use the same disk type and partitioning style. For example, if you want to mirror drives C and D, both drives must have the dynamic disk type and use the same partitioning style, which can be either MBR or GPT. Note that Disk Management allows you to start many disk configuration tasks regardless of whether the disks with which you are working use the dynamic disk type. The catch is that during the configuration process, Disk Management will convert the disks to the dynamic disk type. To learn how to convert a disk from basic to dynamic, see “Changing drive types” on the next page.

You can perform different disk configuration tasks with basic and dynamic disks. With basic disks, you can do the following:

? Format partitions, and mark them as active

? Create and delete primary and extended partitions

? Create and delete logical drives within extended partitions

? Convert from a basic disk to a dynamic disk With dynamic disks, you can do the following:

? Create and delete simple, striped, spanned, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes

? Remove a mirror from a mirrored volume

? Extend simple or spanned volumes

? Split a volume into two volumes

? Repair mirrored or RAID-5 volumes

? Reactivate a missing or offline disk

? Revert to a basic disk from a dynamic disk (requires deleting volumes and restoring from backup)

With either disk type, you can do the following:

? View properties of disks, partitions, and volumes

? Make drive-letter assignments

? Configure security and drive sharing

? Use Storage Spaces to implement standards-based storage

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