This document discusses disk storage and disk configurations in Windows Server 2008. It describes the differences between basic disks and dynamic disks. Basic disks use partitions, while dynamic disks use volumes that provide features like spanning across multiple disks. It also covers converting between disk types, the two partition styles (MBR and GPT), and the five types of dynamic volumes (simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID-5). The Local Disk Manager and Virtual Disk Service manage dynamic disks and storage configurations.

1. Managing Server Disk
Storage

2. Objectives
 Understand on what is a Disk Storage
 Describe the difference between Basic Disks
and Dynamic Disks

3. Disk Storage
 It is a general category of storage
mechanisms where data are recorded by
various electronic, magnetic, optical, or
mechanical changes to a surface layer of one
or more rotating disks.
 A disk drive is a device implementing such a
storage mechanism and is usually
distinguished from the disk medium.

4. Two Types of Disks Configuration
 Windows Server 2008 supports two types of
disk configurations:
 Basic Disks
 Dynamic Disks

5. Basic Disks
 The standard disk type used in previous
versions of Windows. Basic disks are divided
into partitions and can be used with previous
versions of Windows.
 These are the storage types most often used
with Windows. The term basic disk refers to a
disk that contains partitions, such as primary
partitions and logical drives, and these in turn
are usually formatted with a file system to
become a volume for file storage.

6. Dynamic Disks
 An enhanced disk type for Windows Server
2008 that you can update without having to
restart the system (in most cases). Dynamic
disks are divided into volumes and can be
used only with Windows 2000 and later
releases of Windows.
 These provide features that basic disks do
not, such as the ability to create volumes that
span multiple disks (spanned and striped
volumes) and the ability to create fault-
tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5
volumes).

7. Dynamic Disks
 It offers greater flexibility for volume
management because they use a database to
track information about dynamic volumes on
the disk and about other dynamic disks in the
computer.
 Dynamic disks and volumes rely on the
Logical Disk Manager (LDM) and Virtual Disk
Service (VDS) and their associated features.
 Note: You can't use dynamic disks on
portable computers or with removable media.

8. Dynamic Disks
 Note: Unless specified otherwise, Windows
initially partitions a drive as a basic disk by
default. You must explicitly convert a basic
disk to a dynamic disk. However, there are
disk space considerations that must be
accounted for before you to do this

9. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 When you convert to Windows Server 2008,
disks with partitions are initialized as basic
disks.
 When you install Windows Server 2008 on a
new system with unpartitioned drives, you
have the option of initializing the drives as
either basic or dynamic.

10. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 Basic drives support the standard fault-
tolerant features. You can use basic drives to
maintain existing spanning, mirroring, and
striping configurations and to delete these
configurations. However, you can't create
new fault-tolerant drive sets using the basic
disk type.

11. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 You'll need to convert to dynamic disks and
then create volumes that use mirroring or
striping. The fault-tolerant features and the
ability to modify disks without having to restart
the computer are the key capabilities that
distinguish basic and dynamic disks. Other
features available on a disk depend on the
disk formatting.

12. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 You can use both basic and dynamic disks on
the same computer. The catch is that volume
sets must use the same disk type.

13. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 You can perform different disk configuration
tasks with basic and dynamic disks. With
basic disks, you can do the following:
 Format partitions and mark them as active
 Create and delete primary and extended
partitions
 Create and delete logical drives within
extended partitions
 Convert from a basic disk to a dynamic disk

14. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 With dynamic disks, you can do the following:
 Create and delete simple, striped, spanned,
mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes
 Remove a mirror from a mirrored volume
 Extend simple or spanned volumes
 Split a volume into two volumes
 Repair mirrored or RAID-5 volumes
 Reactivate a missing or offline disk
 Revert to a basic disk from a dynamic disk
(requires deleting volumes and reloading)

15. Using Basic and Dynamic Disks
 With either disk type, you can do the
following:
 View properties of disks, partitions, and
volumes
 Make drive letter assignments
 Configure security and drive sharing

16. Special Considerations for Basic
and Dynamic Disks
 Whether you're working with basic or dynamic
disks, you need to keep in mind five special
types of drive sections:
 Active The active partition or volume is the
drive section for system cache and -startup.
Some devices with removable storage may be
listed as having an active partition.
 Boot The boot partition or volume contains the
operating system and its support files. The
system and boot partition or volume can be
the same.

17. Special Considerations for Basic
and Dynamic Disks
 Crash Dump The partition to which the
computer attempts to write dump files in the
event of a system crash. By default, dump files
are written to the %SystemRoot% folder, but
can be located on any desired partition or
volume.
 Page File A partition containing a paging file
used by the operating system. Because a
computer can page memory to multiple disks,
according to the way virtual memory is
configured, a computer can have multiple
page file partitions or -volumes.

18. Special Considerations for Basic
and Dynamic Disks
 System The system partition or volume
contains the hardware-specific files needed to
load the operating system. The system
partition or volume can't be part of a striped or
spanned volume.

19. Changing Drive Types
 Basic disks are designed to be used with
previous versions of Windows. Dynamic disks
are designed to let you take advantage of the
latest Windows features. Only computers
running Windows 2000 or later releases of
Windows can use dynamic disks.

20. Changing Drive Types
 Windows Server 2008 provides the tools you
need to convert a basic disk to a dynamic
disk and to change a dynamic disk back to a
basic disk. When you convert to a dynamic
disk, partitions are changed to volumes of the
appropriate type automatically.
 You can't change these volumes back to
partitions. Instead, you must delete the
volumes on the dynamic disk and then
change the disk back to a basic disk. Deleting
the volumes destroys all the information on
the disk.

21. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 Before you convert a basic disk to a dynamic
disk, you should make sure that you don't
need to boot the computer to other versions
of Windows. Only computers running
Windows 2000 and later releases of Windows
can use dynamic disks.

22. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 With MBR disks, you should also make sure
that the disk has 1 MB of free space at
the end of the disk. Although Disk
Management reserves this free space when
creating partitions and volumes, disk
management tools on other operating
systems might not. Without the free space at
the end of the disk, the conversion will fail.

23. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 With GPT disks, you must have contiguous,
recognized data partitions. If the GPT disk
contains partitions that Windows doesn't
recognize, such as those created by another
operating system, you can't convert to a
dynamic disk.

24. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 With either type of disk, the following holds
true:
 You can't convert drives that use sector sizes
larger than 512 bytes. If the drive has large
sector sizes, you'll need to reformat before
converting.
 You can't use dynamic disks on portable
computers or with removable media. You can
only configure these drives as basic drives
with primary partitions.

25. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 You can't convert a disk if the system or boot
partition is part of a spanned, striped,
mirrored, or RAID-5 volume. You'll need to
stop the spanning, mirroring, or striping before
you convert.
 You shouldn't convert a disk if it contains
multiple installations of the Windows operating
system. If you do, you might be able to start
the computer only using Windows Server
2008.

26. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 You can convert disks with other types of
partitions that are part of spanned, striped,
mirrored, or RAID-5 volumes. These volumes
become dynamic volumes of the same type.
However, you must convert all drives in the set
together.

27. Converting a Basic Disk to a
Dynamic Disk
 To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk,
follow these steps:

28. Changing a Dynamic Disk Back
to a Basic Disk
 Before you can change a dynamic disk back
to a basic disk, you must delete all dynamic
volumes on the disk. After you do this, right-
click the disk and select Convert To Basic
Disk. This changes the dynamic disk to a
basic disk; you can then create new partitions
and logical drives on the disk.

29. Partition Styles
 Also sometimes called partition schemes, is a
term that refers to the particular underlying
structure of the disk layout and how the
partitioning is actually arranged, what the
capabilities are, and also what the limitations
are.

30. Master Boot Record
 All x86-based and x64-based computers
running Windows can use the partition style
known as master boot record (MBR). The
MBR partition style contains a partition table
that describes where the partitions are
located on the disk.
 Because MBR is the only partition style
available on x86-based computers prior to
Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1
(SP1), you do not need to choose this style. It
is used automatically.

31. Master Boot Record
 The following figure illustrates an example
layout of three primary partitions and one
extended partition on a basic disk using MBR.
The extended partition contains four
extended logical drives within it. The
extended partition may or may not be located
at the end of the disk, but it is always a single
contiguous space for logical drives 1-n.

32. Master Boot Record

33. GUID Partition Table
 Systems running Windows Server 2003 with
SP1 and later can use a partition style known
as the globally unique identifier (GUID)
partition table (GPT) in addition to the MBR
partition style.
 A basic disk using the GPT partition style can
have up to 128 primary partitions, while
dynamic disks will have a single LDM
partition as with MBR partitioning.

34. GUID Partition Table
 The GPT partition style also has the following
properties:
 Allows partitions larger than 2 terabytes.
 Added reliability from replication and cyclic
redundancy check (CRC) protection of the
partition table.
 Support for additional partition type GUIDs
defined by original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs), independent software vendors
(ISVs), and other operating systems.

35. GUID Partition Table

36. Local Disk Manager
 The logical disk manager’s main purpose is to
create and manage dynamic disks.
 Dynamic disks are special because they can
span multiple physical disk volumes, which
allows the disks to be resized dynamically,
without the need for rebooting. Unlike basic
disks, a dynamic disk volume contains no
partitions.

37. Local Disk Manager
 It enables disk volumes to be dynamic, in
contrast to the standard basic volume format.
Basic volumes and dynamic volumes differ in
ability to extend storage beyond one physical
disk. Basic partitions are restricted to a fixed
size on one physical disk. Dynamic volumes
can be enlarged to include more free space
either from the same disk or another physical
disk.

38. Virtual Disk Service
 The Virtual Disk Service (VDS) manages a
wide range of storage configurations, from
single-disk desktops to external storage
arrays. The service exposes an application
programming interface (API).
 Virtual Disk Service is a Microsoft Windows
service that performs query and configuration
operations at the request of end users,
scripts, and applications.

39. Virtual Disk Service
 The service extends the existing storage
capabilities of Windows Server operating
systems in the following ways:
 Provides an API to the existing volume and
disk management features in Windows.
 Unifies volume management and hardware
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
management under a single API.

40. Virtual Disk Service
 VDS does not perform the following storage-
management activities:
 Hardware subsystem management, such as
temperature monitoring or the monitoring of
performance statistics for disk arrays.
 Storage Area Network (SAN) fabric
management, such as Host-Based Adapter
(HBA) zoning and security.

41. Types of Dynamic Volumes
 Dynamic disks bring significantly more
flexibility into the creation and management
of volumes both in terms of space
management, performance and redundancy.
There are five types of dynamic volume which
can be created through the use of dynamic
disks:

42. Types of Dynamic Volumes
 Simple Volume - The equivalent of a
partition on a basic disk. A simple volume
must reside on a single disk and cannot be
extended beyond the space available on that
disk.
 Spanned Volume - A spanned volume can
span multiple physical disk drives or be
comprised of multiple, non-contiguous
volumes on a single disk drive. Spanned
volumes avoid many of the limitations
inherent in simple volumes.

43. Types of Dynamic Volumes
 Striped Volume - Also referred to as RAID 0,
disk striping involves splitting data into
multiple parts and writing each part to a
different disk drive (a process which is
reversed when the data is read back). The
disks involved in this process are referred to
as a stripe set. The key purpose of striping is
to increase disk performance.

44. Types of Dynamic Volumes
 Mirrored Volume - Also referred to as RAID
1, disk mirroring involves writing the same
data to two drives such that if one drive fails
an exact copy of the data is available on the
second disk. The primary purpose of disk
mirroring is data redundancy and disaster
recovery.

45.  RAID 5 Volume - RAID 5 is a variation of
volume striping. With RAID 5 striping is used
in conjunction with parity error checking such
that the data can continue to be used in the
event that one of the drives fails. The parity
information can also be used to restore data
in the event of a failure using a technique
known as regeneration. RAID 5 requires 3 or
more disks and is designed to provide fault
tolerance.

46. Web References
 https://itservices.stanford.edu/service/storage/
server
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_storage
 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/aa363785(v=vs.8
5).aspx
 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/dd163552.aspx
 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/bb986750%28v=v
s.85%29.aspx

47. Web References
 http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27245/l
ogical-disk-manager
 http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Creatin
g_and_Managing_Simple_and_Spanned_Vol
umes_on_Windows_Server_2008