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. Though compare to basic disk, dynamic disk has many advantages, it has two huge disadvantages, too. One is that if you convert a basic disk to dynamic, you cannot convert it 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 the system volume, many people would encounter this problem if they need to increase dynamic disk. But due to the limitation of Disk Management, only Simple Volume and Spanned Volume can be extended. Moreover, there is no third-party product can resize dynamic disk directly.

Is there a way to resize dynamic disk? The answer is yes and this article will introduce dynamic disk in a nutshell and share the method how to resize dynamic disk indirectly but safely and how to convert dynamic disk to basic without data loss.

What is Dynamic Disk?

A dynamic disk is a physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes spanning multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer. A disk managed by a software RAID provider with support for flexible volume reconfiguration. A dynamic disk uses a partition as a container for volumes; there is no guaranteed mapping.

What is the dynamic volume resizing limitation in Disk Management?

Before Windows Vista, you cannot resize dynamic disk conveniently, you can only extend dynamic volume in Disk Management. Moreover, following operation is even impossible.

1. Extend System Volume/ Boot Volume.

2. Expand Mirror Volume.

3. Increase Stripped Volume.

4. Extend RAID5 Volume

5. Extend the Simple Volume which was converted from the basic disk of Windows XP/2003 that was upgraded from Windows 2000.

How to resize dynamic volume indirectly without data loss?

There is no third party partition tool that can resize dynamic disk partition directly, you need to convert the dynamic disk to basic, and after that resize the basic disk partition with partition software.