Dynamic Disk in Windows Server 2003

Guy's Litmus Test: Do you understand Dynamic Disk?

Best Practice (Litmus Test)

Professionals evaluate the pros and cons before upgrading to Dynamic Disk

Amateurs in their ignorance, retain basic disk

Dynamic Disks

Professionals take the trouble to investigate the features of 'Dynamic Disk'.  One advantage of Dynamic Disk is that you can extend data partitions.  How is this useful?  Take a case where you need 3 partitions on a disk, but it is not clear which partition will grow the fastest.  Assign 1/4 of the space to each partition leaving 1/4 available to extend which ever partition gets full first.

Dynamic disk has the advantages of supporting an unlimited number of volumes; this overcomes the limitation of only 4 primary partitions and 1 logical drive.  You may also import dynamic disks from other computers, this is because the file information is held on the disk itself not in the registry.  This also explains why you need 1 MB of unallocated space to convert from basic to dynamic disk; the space is needed to create the disk information database.

To convert to Dynamic Disk, go to Disk Management, right click the Disk and select : Upgrade to Dynamic Disk. (Call for the built in Help if you cannot find Disk Management)

Reasons not to upgrade to Dynamic Disk

• Dynamic disk may not work with Cluster Service.
• Take care when converting disks that have Shadow copy enabled.
• You cannot revert to basic disk once you have converted to dynamic disk.
• You cannot boot into other operating systems on dual boot machines.
• You cannot install or Upgrade to Windows Server 2003.
• For some reason dynamic disk is not supported on laptop.
• Dynamic disk is not compatible with 'Ghosting' client disks.

This last point means that you may leave XP professional with the default basic disk.  I have not found a convenient switch to automatically upgrade to dynamic disk, moreover the advantages of dynamic disk are not so important on a workstation.

More Disk Configuration Utilities

Defrag: Professionals regularly defragment their disks for faster file access.

Diskpart: Professionals employ Diskpart for command line configuration.

Another of Guy's Litmus Tests - Performance Monitoring

Professionals install ipMonitor (40% off until Sept 26th)
Consequently they can see instantly which servers are short of resources, and which are running smoothly.  

Amateurs
Keep their fingers crossed that the servers have enough memory and disk space.

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