A basic disk is one that contains primary partitions and logical volumes, with each having its own file system. In Figure 1,
you see a disk subdivided into the maximum four partitions: three
primary partitions and one extended partition that contains multiple
volumes. For most Windows users, basic disks and simple volumes are all
they will ever need.
Figure1. A drive with the maximum number of allowable partitions, one of which is an extended partition
You can do the following with basic disks using the disk’s context menu and the Disk Management menu commands:
• Create and delete both primary and extended partitions
• Create and delete logical volumes (drives) inside an extended partition
• Format a specific partition and mark it active so that Windows 8 can boot from it
In Windows 8, you can
create what are called dynamic disks, which contain dynamic volumes.
With dynamic disks, you can have volumes that do the following:
• Span across two or more locations on the disk and across two or more disks.
• Stripe (RAID 0) your
data across multiple disks, which allows for faster performance because
more disk heads are in operation at the same time.
• Mirror (RAID 1) data from one disk to a second so that you can survive a disk failure by using the working disk.
• Create a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) so that you can survive a disk failure.
One popular RAID level is RAID-5, which
stripes data across three or more disks and writes redundant data
across all three disks. It improves performance and allows you to
survive a disk failure. When a disk fails, you replace it and rebuild
the array from the redundant data.
To create a dynamic disk
1. Tap and hold, or right-click, the Disk label in the Disk Management utility to view the context menu .
The Convert to Dynamic Disk command in the Disk Management utility
2. Select Convert To Dynamic Disk.
3. Windows displays the Convert To Dynamic Disk dialog box . Select the disks you want to convert, and then tap or click OK.
The Convert To Dynamic Disk dialog box
4. The Disks To Convert dialog box appears, confirming your selections. Tap or click Convert to proceed.
5. Windows 8 displays an alert box informing you of the consequences of your actions. Tap or click Yes to perform the operation.
Windows 8 will let you know the consequences of your actions.
When the dynamic disk is complete, the disk label will show the word Dynamic under its name in the graphical bar that represents the disk in the Disk Manager.
Once you create dynamic disks, the commands to create volume sets are enabled. Each command you see on the menu (all of which will now be enabled) launches a wizard to guide you through the process.
To change a dynamic disk to a basic disk
Delete all dynamic volumes on the disk.
To create spanned, striped, mirrored, or RAID volumes
1. Create two or more dynamic disks on your system.
2. Tap or right-click a drive label to view the context menu.
3. Select New Spanned Volume, New Striped Volume, New Mirrored Volume, or New RAID-5 Volume from the context menu .
4. Each command launches a wizard that guides you through the process of creating that particular storage configuration.
Tip
The different dynamic disk
configurations (spanning, striping, mirroring, and RAID) are valuable
ways to get additional performance from a bunch of disks. With
solid-state drives, the performance benefits are less likely to be
important to you, but the data protection features are valuable.
Wikipedia’s article on RAID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID) can provide you with more information on this topic.
