Basic disks, dynamic disks, GPT disks, MBR disks

In Windows Disk Manager, right-click at the Disk tab, with options such as "Convert to Dynamic Disk", "Convert to Basic Disk", "Convert to GPT disk," "Convert to MBR disk," as different disk properties. This article makes a brief introduction to this.

Basic disks and dynamic disks

Disk usage can be divided into two categories: one is "basic disk". Basic disks are very common, and the type of disk we normally use is basically "basic disk". A "basic disk" is limited by 26 English letters, which means that the disk is only one of 26 letters in English. Because A, B has been occupied by the floppy drive, the disk can only c~z 24. In addition, only four primary partitions can be established on the basic disk (note the primary partition, not the extended partition), and the other disk type is dynamic disk. Dynamic disk is not subject to 26 English letters, it is named by volume. The biggest advantage of dynamic disks is that you can extend disk capacity to non contiguous disk space.

A dynamic hard disk is the upgrade of a local hard drive in Disk Manager. The biggest difference between a dynamic disk and a basic disk is that the previous partitioning method is no longer used, but is called the volume set (Volume), which is divided into simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. Basic disks and dynamic disks have the following differences:

1, Volume set or number of partitions. Dynamic disks have no limits on the number of volume sets that can be created on one hard disk. A basic disk can only be divided into up to four primary partitions on a single hard disk.

2, disk space management. Dynamic disks can create partitions of different disks into a set of volumes, and these partitions can be noncontiguous, which is the total size of several disk partitions. Basic disks cannot be partitioned across hard disks and require partitions to be contiguous, the maximum capacity of each partition is the maximum capacity of a single hard drive, and the access rate does not increase compared to a single hard drive.

3, Disk capacity size management. Dynamic disks allow us to resize dynamic disks without restarting the machine and not lose and corrupt existing data. Once the partition of a basic disk is created, it cannot change the size of the capacity unless it is aided by third-party disk utility software, such as PQ Magic.

4, disk configuration information management and fault tolerance. Dynamic disks Place disk configuration information on disk, and if a RAID fault tolerant system is replicated to other dynamic disks, you can take advantage of RAID-1 fault tolerance, and if a hard drive is damaged, the system will automatically call the data on the other hard drive to maintain the integrity of the data. The basic disk stores the configuration information in the boot area without fault tolerance.

Basic disks can be converted to dynamic disks directly, but the process is irreversible. To return to the basic disk, only copy all the data out, and then delete all the partitions on the hard drive to turn back.

GPT disks and MBR disks

GPT (globally Unique Identifier Partition Table Format) A disk partition schema that is used by the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) on an Itanium computer. Compared to the master boot record (MBR) partitioning method, GPT has more advantages because it allows up to 128 partitions per disk, supports up to 18,000 megabytes of volume size, allows primary and backup partition tables to be used for redundancy, and supports unique disk and partition IDs (GUIDs).

With a maximum volume of 2 TB (terabytes) and up to 4 primary partitions per disk (or 3 primary partitions), a GUID partition table (GPT) disk partition style supports a maximum volume of 18 for a master boot record (MBR) disk partition style for an extended partition and an unrestricted logical drive EB (exabytes) and has a maximum of 128 partitions per disk. Unlike MBR partition disks, the most important platform operation data is in partitions, rather than in unpartitioned or hidden sectors. In addition, GPT partitioned disks have redundant primary and backup partition tables to improve the integrity of partitioned data structures.

The operating system must reside on MBR disks on x86 and x64 based computers running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). Other hard disks can be MBR or GPT.

On an Itanium based computer, the operating system loader and boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be MBR or GPT.

You can have either an MBR or a GPT disk in a single dynamic disk group. You also use a mix of basic GPT and MBR disks, but they are not part of a disk group. You can use both MBR and GPT disks to create mirrored volumes, striped volumes, spanned volumes, and RAID-5 volumes, but the MBR's column-facing restrictions may make it difficult to create mirrored volumes. You can usually mirror the MBR disk to a GPT disk to avoid the problem of column alignment. You can convert an MBR disk to a GPT disk, and you can convert a GPT disk to an MBR disk only if the disk is empty. Otherwise the data will be lost!!!

You cannot use GPT partition styles on removable media, or on a cluster disk that is connected to a shared SCSI or Fibre Channel bus that is used by the Cluster service