What are Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk ?
Basic Disk : Primary Partition,Extended Partition,Logical Drives
Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk are generally the two types of hard disk configuration in Microsoft Windows.A Basic Disk Consists of Primary Partition that is used for the storage of Windows Files , Extended Partition and Logical drives for organizing the data.Basic Disks provides a simple storage solution for storing the files and it supports clustered disks,IEEE 1394 disks and USB Removable Drives.Basic disks makes use of MBR (Master Boot Record) Partition style similar to the disks used by Microsoft MS-DOS Operating Systems.It also supports GPT (GUID Partition table). Most of the Personal Computers makes use of Basic Disks because they are very simple to manage where you can extend your primary partition and logical drives space with simple clicks.
Some Common Operations applicable to Basic Disk only :
- You can easily create or delete your Primary and Extended Partitions
- You can create or delete the logical drives
- You can format the partitions and make them active
Dynamic Disk : Volume Management
Dynamic Disk consists of large number of dynamic volumes around 2000 that works very similar to the Primary Partitions as used in Basic Disk.Dynamic Disk are mostly used by Advanced IT professionals to increase the performance and reliability of the computer.Dynamic Disks also supports both MBR (Master Boot Record) Partition style and GPT (GUID Partition table) similar to the basic Disks.Dynamic Disk have the ability to create volumes so that can span Multiple Disks.Dynamic Disks provides great Flexibility in Volume management because they make use of database in order to track the information of dynamic volumes located on the disk.Dynamic Disk allows volumes to have a non contiguous extents on one or more physical disks.LDM(Local Disk Manger) and VDS(Virtual Disk Service) are the main basis of Dynamic Disks and its volumes providing you with features to change Basic Disks into Dynamic Disks or Vice-versa and allows you to create fault-tolerant volumes.
Some Common Operations applicable to Dynamic Disk only :
- You can create and delete all types of volumes like Simple,RAID-5,Mirrored,Spanned,Stripped
- You can easily extend any Stripped or Spanned Volume
- Repair any Mirrored or RAID-5 Volumes
- You can Reactivate any missing or offline Disk
Common Operations Applicable to Both Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk:
- Both of Basic Disk and Dynamic Disks supports MBR (Master Boot Record) Partition style and GPT (GUID Partition table)
- You can Check Disk properties in both Basic Disk and Dynamic Disks like – Free space,Capacity,Current Status etc
- Convert Basic Disk into Dynamic Disk or Convert Dynamic Disk into Basic Disk
- Create Drive Letters in both Basic Disk and Dynamic Disks for the partition or disk volumes and for CD/DVD-ROM
- View Partition Properties (like offset, length, type etc) as well as Volume Properties (like label, type, Win32 path name etc)
Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk Difference : Major Differences
- Dynamics Disks are supported with Multipartition Volumes where you can create the volumes whereas Basic Disks do not possess this property
- Basic Disk Partition Information is stored in the Windows Registry Whereas Dynamic Disks Information is stored on the disk itself
- Dynamic Disk Volumes consists of noncontinuous extents on one or more physical disks
Learn More About Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk Difference From Here
Learn How to Convert Basic Disk into Dynamic Disk From Here