When would you use a simple volume?

You can use a simple volume for all data storage until you need more space on your disks. To gain more space, you can create an extended, spanned, or striped volume. For other than a simple volume, though, you need more than one disk.

What does simple volume mean?

A simple volume is a portion of a physical disk that functions as though it were a physically separate unit. A simple volume can consist of a single region on a disk or multiple regions of the same disk that are linked together.

What are disadvantages of dynamic disk?

The disadvantage of dynamic disks is that you must delete all volumes on a dynamic disk before you can revert the disk back to a basic disk. Another major disadvantage of dynamic disks is the near absence of tools to fix the disk if it has corrupt sectors on it.

Can you boot from a simple volume?

The primary partition is a partition which can be used to boot an Operating System, can only be created on a basic disk with MBR or GPT partition table under all Windows systems. To convert simple volume to primary partition, it equals to a switch from dynamic disk to basic disk.

What is the difference between simple volume and spanned volume?

A simple volume uses free space from a single disk. It can be a single region on a disk or consist of multiple, concatenated regions. A simple volume can be extended within the same disk or onto additional disks. If a simple volume is extended across multiple disks, it becomes a spanned volume.

What are the advantages of a dynamic disk over a basic one?

Dynamic disks provide volume migration, which is the ability to move a disk or disks containing a volume or volumes from one system to another system without loss of data. Dynamic disks allow you to move portions of volumes (subdisks) between disks on a single computer system to optimize performance.

What is the difference between simple volume and primary partition?

The simple volume is dynamic storage which functions as a primary partition in Windows NT 4.0 and its older versions, can only be created on a dynamic disk. Hence, simple volumes are based on dynamic disk while primary partitions are based on basic disk.

What is the advantage of dynamic disks over basic disks?

Are spanned volumes reliable?

Spanned volumes combine areas of unallocated space from multiple disks into one logical volume. The areas of unallocated space can be different sizes. The reliability for a spanned volume is less than the least reliable disk in the set.