Chapter 4: Disk Management Basics for Windows 2000

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How exactly do you stay in control of your disks and manage them efficiently? This chapter looks at how an enterprise can control hard drive management and discusses the fundamentals of disk management, the different volume types, and the various disk arrangements employed in servers. It goes into detail about initializing and formatting disks, as well as creating volumes and fault-tolerant disk systems. With the advent of Windows 2000, in particular, much has changed in the land of disk management. Terminology has been adjusted, functionality has been enriched, and we now have a whole new element: dynamic disks, which promise greater features for disk management on Windows-based systems than ever before. For the IT professional, it is particularly important to understand the difference between basic disks and dynamic disks and what this means to system functionality.

The Importance of Disk Management

Disk management is one of the most important aspects of a system administrator's job. Without an understanding of the fundamentals of disk management, errors and catastrophes await. Although things were already complex enough, the advent of Windows 2000 has changed many things in the disk management landscape. It is vital to know, for example, the differences between a basic disk and a dynamic disk when deciding which one to employ. Also, many different volume types are now available; in fact, Windows 2000 changed some of the terminology previously used with regard to partitions and volumes. For some disks, the word partition applies, and for others the term volume is used. While this distinction may seem trivial, an understanding of the subtle differences between these terms is vital to Windows 2000 server disk management. This knowledge also very much relates to creating the fault-tolerant systems that play an essential part in everyday operations as well as disaster recovery.

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