Convert disk to a Dynamic Drive?

[billg2911]

In disk management, Convert disk to a Dynamic Drive. Will this increase performance? what does it do??

[moonraker]

Hi Bill,

no it won't make a scrap of difference to performance. It's a means of being able to resize and remake partitions and volumes "on the fly" without destroying the data on them.

[billg2911]

Thanks moonraker, can ya convert back or is this a one way road?

[moonraker]

Hi Bill,

there is always a price to pay......
The disk/volume/partition with the system and/or boot files on it can be converted to a dynamic disk, but cannot be resized without re-booting the machine. Other disks without system files on, once they are converted to dynamic disks, can be resized without a reboot.

A dynamic disk can be converted back to a basic disk, using the disk manager in the same way as it was made into a dynamic disk. However, this results in the loss of all data on that disk :xscared:
So not entirely a one way street but one with a lot of large trucks coming at you when you try to go back down it :D

[mackerel]

I would say that, unless you have a need for it, then don't convert to it.

One neat feature I believe is the ability to "mount" disks into the file system of others, much like the way Unix works. So you can have a single filesystem and yet still expand the capacity as required. No more of those drive letter thingies.

Also with dynamic disks, you get the ability to set up some riad options. In XP pro, you can let the OS create stripe for performance, or string disks together to appear as one bigger logical one. Unfortunately I wanted mirroring but that's only in the server edition it appears :( Why MS wont give it to us in Pro I don't know...
to me I'll need redundancy before performance.