Recipe3.2.Converting a Basic Disk to Dynamic

Recipe 3.2. Converting a Basic Disk to Dynamic

Problem

You want to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Open the Computer Management snap-in.

2. In the left pane, expand Storage and click on Disk Management .

3. In the lower-right pane, right-click the disk you want to convert and select Convert to Dynamic Disk (on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) or Upgrade to Dynamic Disk (on Windows 2000).

4. Check the box beside the disk(s) you want to convert and click OK .

5. Click Convert (on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) or Upgrade (on Windows 2000) and click Yes to confirm the conversion.

Using a command-line interface

On Windows Server 2003, you can use the diskpart utility to convert a disk to dynamic. First, run diskpart to enter interactive mode:

> diskpart

You need to get a list of disks so you can select the one you want to convert:

> list disk

In the following example, I'll select disk 0 :

> select disk 0

Now, run the following command to convert the disk:

> convert dynamic

You may be asked to reboot for the change to take effect.

Using VBScript

None of the WMI classes support converting a disk to a dynamic disk.

Discussion

By default, disks are initialized as basic on both Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. You can convert a disk to dynamic to take advantage of features such as the ability to dynamically extend partitions. Some additional benefits of dynamic disks include:

• You can perform disk and volume management without needing to restart the operating system.

• You can organize dynamic disks into disk groups. Configuration information for all disks in a group is shared and kept up-to-date even if a dynamic disk fails or is moved to another system.

• You have more options for configuring volumes. Dynamic disks support the following dynamic volumes: simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes .

• You are not limited on the number of volumes you create on a dynamic disk. With a basic disk you can create up to four primary partitions or three primary partitions and one extended partition.

Once you convert a disk to dynamic, you cannot convert it back to basic unless you delete all of the dynamic volumes on the disk.

Recipe 3.3. Enabling Disk Performance Statistics

Problem

You want to monitor disk performance and you need to enable performance statistics.

Solution

On Windows 2000 Server, run the following command and then reboot:

> diskperf -y

On Windows Server 2003, all disk performance statistics are enabled by default.

Discussion

With Windows NT, both logical and physical disk performance counters were disabled by default. With Windows 2000, physical disk counters were enabled and logical disk counters were disabled. With Windows Server 2003, both logical and physical disk counters are enabled. Logical and physical disk counters were disabled by default in previous versions of the OS because of the concern that the impact to performance would be too great to have them on all the time. As disk access times have steadily improved over the years , the performance hit has become negligible. Now, you can safely have both physical and logical disk counters enabled on either Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003.

Within Performance Monitor, the LogicalDisk and PhysicalDisk objects contain the counters that are available when disk performance statistics are enabled.

See Also

MS KB 253251 (Using Diskperf in Windows 2000)