As with previous versions, Windows Server 2019 has a native Disk Management tool to help manage disk partitions. But it can only do some basic operations; it is not as powerful as third-party software. This article introduces what Windows Server 2019 Disk Management does and its limitations compared with server disk partition manager software.
What does Windows Server 2019 Disk Management do
There are 3 common ways to open Disk Management in Windows Server 2019:
- Right-click the Windows icon on the bottom left and click Disk Management in the list.
- Press Windows and X together on your keyboard, then you'll see Disk Management in the list.
- Press Windows + R to open Run, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.
Right-click a partition or the front of a disk to see available options. Unavailable options are grayed out, meaning that the disk or partition type of the current configuration does not meet the requirements of this function.
To an initialized disk, the options include:
- New Spanned Volume
- New Striped Volume
- New Mirrored Volume
- New RAID-5 Volume
- Convert to Dynamic Disk
- Convert to GPT disk
- Offline
- Properties
To an allocated partition, the options include:
- Open root directory in File Explorer
- Mark partition as Active
- Change drive letter and paths
- Format
- Extend Volume
- Shrink Volume
- Add Mirror
- Delete partition
- Properties
Besides the basic ability to create, delete, and format partitions, Windows Server 2019 Disk Management has some advanced capabilities.
Manage dynamic volumes:
Server 2019 Disk Management is able to create and manage Simple, Mirrored, Striped, Spanned and RAID 5 dynamic volumes.
Dynamic disk volumes consume significant server resources; if one disk is damaged, all data in this volume will be lost. Hardware prices are much lower now, so most servers use hardware RAID arrays instead of dynamic volumes.
Disk conversion:
Disk Management has the option to convert a disk between MBR and GPT, and convert a disk between Basic and Dynamic.
However, it can only convert a Basic disk to Dynamic without losing data. To convert a Dynamic disk to Basic or convert between MBR and GPT, you must delete all partitions on the disk.
Change partition size:
As with previous versions, Server 2019 Disk Management has Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions to help resize allocated partitions without losing data (in most cases).
But because of certain restrictions of both functions, Disk Management cannot extend a partition by shrinking another one. In addition, only NTFS partitions can be resized.
How to resize partition with Server 2019 Disk Management
To shrink partition in Server 2019 Disk Management:
- Right-click a NTFS partition in Disk Management and select Shrink Volume.
- Enter an amount of space and click Shrink. (If you do not enter an amount, the maximum available space is used.)
Disadvantages of "Shrink Volume" function:
- Unallocated space can only be made on the right side while shrinking.
- It can only shrink a small amount of space if there are unmovable files located on this drive.
To extend partition in Server 2019 Disk Management:
- Right-click the right contiguous partition (D:) and select Delete Volume.
- Right-click the partition that you want to expand (C:) and select Extend Volume.
- Simply click Next until Finish in the pop-up Extend Volume Wizard window.
Disadvantages of "Extend Volume" function:
- There must be adjacent Unallocated space on the right of the partition that you want to extend; otherwise, the Extend option is disabled.
- If drive D is Logical, you still cannot extend C: drive even after deleting D.
Follow the better method to resize partition on Windows Server 2019.
Comparison with server disk partition manager
Compared with the Windows Server 2019 built-in Disk Management tool, third-party software is much more powerful. There are many such software utilities on the market, and their GUI and functions are all similar. But better than other software, NIUBI Partition Editor is much safer and faster because of its advanced technologies:
- Virtual Mode - All operations are listed as pending at first; real disk partitions won't be modified until you click "Apply" to confirm.
- Hot-Clone - Clone disk partitions without server interruption. You can clone the system disk as a backup and boot from the cloned disk immediately.
- Cancel-at-will - If you applied wrong operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations at any stage without destroying partitions.
- 1 Second Rollback - If any known error is detected while resizing a partition, it automatically reverts the server to its original status instantly.
- Advanced file-moving algorithm - Move and extend partitions 30% to 300% faster.
Download NIUBI Partition Editor and you'll see the main window with the disk partition structure and other information on the right. Available operations to the disk or partition are listed on the left and via right-clicking. Unavailable operations will be hidden to keep the interface clean.
Available operations to a partition:
- Resize volume (shrink and extend)
- Move partition location
- Merge two adjacent volumes by 1 step
- Copy volume to Unallocated space
- Convert partition between Logical and Primary
- Convert NTFS to FAT32
- Optimize file system
- Change drive letter (such as D:)
- Change label (add or modify name of partition)
- Set as Active
- Check file system integrity
- Defrag to improve performance
- Hide from File Explorer
- Delete (files can be recovered)
- Format volume to use as new
- Wipe (erase data permanently)
- Surface test (scan bad sectors)
- Explore (view files/folders within directory)
- View properties
Available operations to whole disk:
- Initialize brand new disk
- Change status to offline or online
- Set read-only attribute
- Wipe disk (cannot be recovered)
- Surface test
- View properties
- Clone disk to migrate data and OS
- Convert MBR disk to GPT
- Delete all partitions
- Cleanup disk
Learn how to manage disk partition for Server 2019 with this powerful tool.
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