Can I use Disk Management on Windows 11 to convert to dynamic disk? In this post, you can learn the steps to do it. When the convert to dynamic disk button is greyed out, you can try the alternative provided.
▶ Basic disk: A basic disk is a physical disk in the Windows operating system that contains primary partitions, logical partitions, etc. It supports both MBR and GPT. When you initialize a hard disk on a computer, it is initially set up as a basic disk. Basic disks store data on different basic partitions, so you can manage storage space by resizing, deleting, and formatting partitions.
▶ Dynamic disk: Unlike basic disks, dynamic disks keep track of all volumes through the Logical Disk Manager (LDM), so it's more convenient. You can create more than 32 dynamic volumes including simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes on the system. Additionally, you can share data among various dynamic disks to prevent data loss.
Which one is better between basic disk and dynamic disk? The following excel lists the differences between dynamic and basic disks:
By reading the table, you may discover many advantages of dynamic disks, especially there're multiple disks installed on your PC. However, dynamic disks are not recommended in some cases: for example, when your operating system is Windows 7 Home, Windows Vista Home and other old Windows systems, dynamic hard disks are not suitable for use.
Can you convert the disk to dynamic one? Yes, here we will show the detailed steps to use Disk Management on Windows 11 to convert to dynamic disk.
Disk Management is a built-in tool in Windows system, Windows users can use this tool to initialize disks, create volumes, delete volumes, format volumes, and so on. Please fellow the steps to use Disk Management on Windows 11 to convert to dynamic disk.
Note: When the disk is a MBR disk and the size is larger than 2TB, you should convert MBR to GPT first, or the "Convert to Dynamic Disk" option will be grayed out.
Step 1. Right-click "This computer" and click "Manage". Click "Disk Management" button under "Storage" in the ejected window.
Step 2. Right-click the basic disk and click "Convert to Dynamic Disk".
Step 3. Choose the target disk to convert (you can choose more than one disk), then click "OK".
Step 4. Click "Convert" and a message will pop up to tell you what will happen after converting to dynamic disk, click "Yes" if you want to continue.
Tip: If you want to convert a dynamic disk to basic in Windows 11, please clean up the dynamic disk in advance, for Disk Management only supports the converting task for empty disks.
Although you can use Windows 11 Disk Management to convert to dynamic disk, it still has limitations. Here, you can try a safer and easier alternative - AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.
It can replace Windows Disk Management, converting basic disk to dynamic disk in a few steps. Besides, this all-in-one tool can also wipe hard drive, move application from one partition to another, migrate OS to another drive, etc.
Download the Demo and see how it works on converting the disk to dynamic one.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition, right-click the target disk and select "Dynamic Disk Manager" to open the Dynamic Disk Manager Pro Edition.
Step 2. Right-click the target basic disk and click "Convert to Dynamic Disk".
Step 3. Tick the basic disk (Disk 2), then click "OK".
Step 4. You can see the change of this basic disk, press "Commit" to operate it.
Step 5. Click "Proceed" to convert basic disks to dynamic disks.
Step 6. After a few minutes, you will see the task is completed.
From this tutorial, you can learn steps to use Disk Management on Windows 11 to convert to dynamic disk. If the option is grayed out in Disk Management, you can easily solve it with the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.
By the way, if you're using Windows Server, you can turn to the Server Version to convert basic disks to dynamic.