Dynamic Disk Windows 7: How to Create, Manage and Convert Dynamic Disk

What is a dynamic disk (Windows 7)?

Dynamic disk and basic disk are two types of disk. By comparison, the dynamic disk is more flexible than a basic disk because it uses a hidden logical disk manager or virtual disk service to keep track of all dynamic volumes on the disk. On a basic disk, you can create primary drive, extended drive, and logical drives. On a dynamic disk, with special information tracking method, you are allowed to create volumes that span across many disks such as the spanned or striped volumes, and fault-tolerant volumes like RAID-5 or mirrored volumes.

However, in Windows 7, the dynamic disk does not support RAID-5 volume. The RAID 0 and RAID 1 are supported. The RAID 0 always refers to striped volume can improve disk I/O performance but cannot offer fault tolerance. The RAID 1 means the mirrored volume, which is a fault-tolerant volume and provides data redundancy by duplicating the information contained on the volume. If one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk.

Can Windows 7 install on dynamic disk?

From above, we know dynamic disk has 5 different volumes and allows you to do much more than a basic disk. So, do you want to install Windows 7 on the dynamic disk? Do you know what versions of Windows 7 support dynamic disk?
In general, Windows 7 (or Windows 8) supports two disk storage types: basic and dynamic. But not all Windows 7 editions realize dynamic disk configuration. Dynamic disks are only supported for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate Editions. You can not convert basic disk to dynamic in Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic and Premium Editions. So only Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate Editions can install on dynamic disk.
 

Dynamic disk manager for Windows 7

To manage dynamic disk in Windows , such as converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk, you can use Window Disk Management. That can help you change Windows 7 basic disk into a dynamic one without damaging all the partitions and data on basic disk. They will turn into simple volume after conversion. This Windows built-in dynamic disk manager also allows you to create, delete, format, shrink or extend dynamic volume.

If you want a more professional dynamic disk manager for Windows 7 PC, you can switch to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It has a built-in dynamic disk manager. On one hand, it covers all basic dynamic volume management features like extend, shrink and resize, create, delete dynamic volumes. On the other hand, it provides some advanced features: move volume slice, add drive to RAID , or remove drive from RAID.

Best dynamic disk converter Windows 7

In addition to dynamic disk manager, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional also offers the “Dynamic Disk Converter”, which can convert a dynamic disk back to a basic one without deleting any dynamic volumes, a great improvement than Disk Management that can only convert an empty dynamic disk to basic disk. You can download the free demo and check out how to convert dynamic disk step by step.

Step 1. Open the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Select the target disk. Then click “Convert” on the top pane. In the drop-down menu, hit “Dynamic Disk Converter”.

Step 2. In the welcome screen, click on “Next”.

Step 3. Now, you have two options: "Convert a dynamic disk back to basic disk" and "Convert any dynamic volume to basic partition". Here we choose first option. Click "Next".

Note: If you have spanned/striped/mirrored/RAID-5 volumes, the program cannot convert them directly, then choose Method 2 to copy data to other locations first. After that, you could delete these volumes and select Method 1 to continue the conversion.

Step 4. Select the target dynamic disk and click "Next".

Step 5. Then the dynamic disk will be converted to basic disk. Click "Finish”.

Summary

In this article, we have offered some basic information on dynamic disk Windows 7. Besides, great dynamic disk manager and converter are also introduced. The AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is even a basic disk manager with powerful features: clone partition, clone hard disk, merge partition, quick partition, split partition, convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, transfer OS to SSD and more. If you are using Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012,2008 and 2003, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.