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Boost storage capacity without breaking the bank

August 25th, 2006

You've implemented a Windows XP file server for one department that you support. User connect to the server with a mapped drive and also with an application that can't access data on multiples disks. Things go well until you notice the hard drive is filling up fast and the department needs every file on the server. You need an answer fast! The computer has a second hard drive that you don't use, but you can't use it due to your user's applications requirements. Or can you?

Fortunately, when you upgrade basic disks to dynamic disk technology, you can utilize existing hard disks with no adverse effects on your users. Employing dynamic disk technology, you can boost performance and take greater advantage of existing storage without spending a penny.

Identify basic disks

Prior to Windows 2000, you were limited to using basic disks, which are physical disk drives that contain partitions. A partition is simply a fixed portion of the basic disk that Windows sets aside to behave like a separate disk drive. Each basic disk can have up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and one extended partition. In turn, an extended partition can contain a virtually unlimited number of logical drives, which are simply subdivisions of and extended partition.

Remember that once you create partitions, you can't change their size without losing all the data on the disk drive (unless you use a third-party utility).

Add a custom sheet to the New dialog box

Before you can add your own custom property sheets to the New dialog box (Templates dialog box in 2002/2003), you need to know where Excel stores its built-in templates. This location, known as the user template directory, varies depending on the version of Excel you are using, as well as the operating system on which you're using it. Table A lists the standard locations of Excel's user template directory for many common system configurations.

To identify basic disks on a system:

1. Open Disk Management by right-clicking on My Computer and choosing Manage, and then navigate to Disk Management in the Computer Management console.

2. In the right pane, review the Type column. Disk Management lists the disks as basic.

Dynamic disk basics

With Windows 2000, XP Professional and Server 2003, you can use a dynamic disk, which contains dynamic volumes rather than partitions. In order to implement dynamic disks, you computer must not be:

• A mobile computer
• A server deployed in a cluster environment
• Using Windows XP Home Edition
• Using Advanced Power Management (APM)

No more four-partition limitation

Dynamic disks remove the four-partition limit of basic disks. On a dynamic disk, you can have as many volumes as you'd like, keeping in mind that you can only assign drive letters through the letter Z. You can mount volumes past the limit imposed by the alphabet to empty folders as long as the empty folder resides on an NTFS volume.

Support volume spanning

Dynamic disks enable you to increase an NTFS volume's size by extending (or spanning) it into unallocated space. If, for example, you need to claim extra space for a volume that's getting packed with more and more data every day, you can extend it using unallocated space on the same hard disk or on a different hard disk. Although Disk Management displays spanned volumes to look like two separate volumes, both units share a drive letter, and you'll manage them as one volume.

Stripe volumes

To substantially improve data access speeds, you can stripe volumes. When striped, a volume stores data in stripes on two or more physical disks. To stripe a volume, you must use at least two physical dynamic disks. You can stripe a volume on up to 32 disks.

Additional options for servers

With Windows Server 2000 and Server 2003, you can also use dynamic disks to create a software RAID array. Furthermore, with the server operating systems, you can take advantage of software-based mirrored disks when you employ dynamic storage.

Convert to dynamic disks

Converting to dynamic disks is fairly simple, and you won't experience data loss. You can convert upgraded disks to basic if necessary (except for the disk that holds the boot portion), but you must back up the data first because you have to delete all volumes before you proceed. So, be sure it's what you want to do before you do it.

Make sure you have some free space on the disk before you start the conversion: You'll need at least a few megabytes of free space so Windows can write the dynamic disk information to a small database file that's stored on all the dynamic disks in your system. If you don't have any free space on your hard disk, you're likely to encounter an error when you try to convert it.

After the conversion completes, instead of the partitions you saw in Disk Management, you'll see volumes in their place. They represent storage units on the hard disk in the same way partitions do.

To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk

1. Open the Computer Management console and navigate to Disk Management.

2. In the disk display in the lower-right corner, right-click on the disk you want to convert and select Convert to Dynamic Disk.

3. In the Convert to Dynamic Disk dialog box, you see a list of all the basic disks in your PC. Verify that the check box for the disk you want to convert is selected and click OK.

4. If you converted the disk that contains your boot partition, Windows prompts you to reboot the computer. To do so, click OK. After the computer restarts, you'll have to reboot a second time to complete the conversion.

Create and extend simple volumes

Now that you've converted your disks to dynamic disks, you're ready to create (or even extend) volumes. To create new volumes, use the New Volume Wizard. This wizard looks and functions exactly like the New Partition Wizard, which you used to create partitions on your basic disks. The big difference is that instead of being able to choose among partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives, you now get to choose from one of several types of volumes. The types of volumes you can create include:

• Simple Volume. A volume that consists of disk space from one or more regions on a single disk.
• Spanned volume. A volume that consists of disk space on more than one physical disk. Spanned volumes have no fault tolerance. If your spanned volume uses two physical disks and one of those disks fails, you won't be able to access the data on the entire spanned volume.
• Striped volume. A volume that writes data in stripes across two or more physical disks. A striped volume offers you enhanced read and write performance (because Windows accesses all disks simultaneously), but no fault tolerance. A striped volume corresponds to RAID Level 0.
• Mirrored volume. A volume for which Windows Server 2000 or Server 2003 duplicates its data on a second physical disk. This configuration offers you fault tolerance because it enables Windows Server 2003 to continue to access the volume's data even if one disk fails. Mirrored volumes correspond to Raid Level 1.
• Raid-5 Volume. A volume for which Windows Server 2000 or 2003 writes its data across three or more physical disks. When Windows Server writes the data, it includes parity information that enables it to reconstruct the data on any one of the disks should one fail.

To create a simple volume:

1. In Disk Management, right-click on unallocated space on a dynamic disk and choose Create Volume.

2. Follow the steps in this wizard to create the volume, much the same way you'd create a partition on a basic disk.

To extend a volume:

1. To increase the size of a volume, right-click on it and choose Extend Volume.

2. On the Welcome page of the Extend Volume Wizard, click Next.

3. On the Select Disks page, select the disk to which you want to extend the volume. This free space can be on the same disk as the original volume or on a different disk.

4. In the Size text box, enter the amount of space to which you want to extend the disk. Click Next.

5. Click Finish. When you complete the wizard, you'll see two separate volumes displayed, but you'll administer them as one drive and they'll share the same drive letter.

To mirror an existing volume on Server 2000/Server 2003:

1. In Disk Management, right-click on the existing volume and choose Add Mirror.

2. In the Add Mirror dialog box, select the disk on which you want  to place the mirror.

3. Click Add Mirror.

To create and mirror a new volume on Server 2000/Server 2003:

1. In Disk Management, right-click on a disk with unallocated space and choose New Volume. Click Next.

2. Select Mirrored and click Next.

3. Select a disk on which you want to place the mirrored copy and click Add.

4. If necessary, modify the volume size. Click Next.

5. Select a drive letter for the mirrored volume and click Next.

6. Select a format for the volume and click Next

7. Click Finish to create the mirrored volume.

To create a RAID-5 volume on Server 2000/Server 2003:

1. In Disk Management, right-click on a disk that contains unallocated disk space and choose New Volume. Click Next.

2. On the Select Volume Type page, select RAID-5 and click Next.

3. On the Select Disks page, select the disks you want to include in the RAID-5 volume. Remember, you must have at least three. Click Next.

4. Assign a drive letter to the volume and click Next.

5. Format the volume. Click Next, and then click Finish.

As you may remember, RAID-T and mirrored volumes' benefit over other dynamic volumes is fault tolerance.

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