[2 Simple Ways] How to Allocate a Hard Drive in Windows 11?

My C drive runs low on storage

“Around 1 week ago, I upgraded my 2-year-old dell laptop to Windows 11. At the beginning, everything went fine and the new features of this latest OS literally shocked me. However, today, after booting the device, I was prompted that the C drive was running low on space.

I was not surprised for, recently, my laptop indeed became really slow. However, I don’t plan on replacing the SSD with a bigger one. So, I am trying to figure out a way to give the C drive some free space. But I’m no computing professional and have no idea how to do that. Can anybody tell me how to allocate a hard drive in Windows 11?”

Why allocate a hard drive in Windows 11?

If you’re not able to download and install any Windows update or third-party software, the chances are that you’re running low on disk space. Indeed, warnings like C drive full may pop up when there’s insufficient disk storage left.

Some computer users choose to replace their hard drives with a bigger one while others decide to allocate some free space from one drive to another. The first method requires both money and skills of hard drive installation which might be a little bit complex for beginners. So, by comparison, free space allocation for hard drive in Windows 11 seems to be more cost-effective and reasonable for all people.

How to allocate hard drive space in Windows 11?

Generally speaking, there’re 2 tools when it comes to free space allocation between disks. One is called Disk Management, a practical and free Windows built-in program utility that helps manage both hard drives and partitions. The other is a third-party software utility by AOMEI that contains even more features.

Method 1. Use Disk Management to extend a drive with free space

With Disk Management, you can extend the target disk with a piece of unallocated space.

1. Select “This PC” from the desktop, right-click on it, and select “Manage”.

2. Click on “Disk Management” under the tab “Storage”.

3. If there’s a piece of unallocated space next to the disk you need to extend, right-click on the disk and select “Extend Volume”. Then, follow the onscreen guide to finish the rest steps.

If there’s no unallocated space, you have to delete the contiguous partition next to the disk to create a piece of unallocated space. Then, do as you did above to extend the target disk.  

Note: You can make a backup of the partition in advance in case of any data loss.

The free space allocation with Disk Management is finished but you can tell there’s a big limit when using this program utility – to extend a disk, there must be a piece of unallocated space right next to it or you have to delete a partition to create one piece.

Method 2. Use a third-party software utility without deleting any partition

If you don’t want to extend a disk by deleting another disk when there’s no unallocated space, then, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional should be your best choice. With this powerful disk manager, you can directly allocate free space from one partition to another. The whole process is secure and there’s no need to worry about any data loss. Besides, other useful features including partition split and quick partition are also supported.

How to allocate a hard drive in Windows 11? Try the best disk manager for the free space allocation.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, right-click on a partition that has enough space and select “Allocate Free Space” in the dropdown menu. 

Step 2. In the next window, preset the size of the free space you want to allocate and the target partition you want to allocate the free space to. When done, click on “OK”

Step 3. After returning to the home interface, hit “Apply” on the upper left and then, hit “Proceed” to start the space allocation.

Conclusion

How do I allocate my hard drive in Windows 11? In this post, you learned both why and how to do the storage space allocation. Disk Management and the third-party AOMEI product are introduced to help with it. By comparison, the latter one AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional seems to be a better choice for you can directly allocate free space from one partition to another without partition deletion. To use this software on Servers, please try the Server edition.