Hard disk drive is an indispensable component in a server, no matter you use mechanical disk, solid state drive (SSD) or any types of hardware RAID arrays. Before saving files to a brand new disk, you should initialize this disk, create and format partitions. After running this server for a period of time, you may need to shrink a large volume to create more. Or expand a volume when it is running out of space, or copy and replace disk with a larger one. Therefore, you need a reliable disk manager for the server to help accomplish these tasks. This article introduces free and best disk partition tool for Windows Server 2019/2022.
Free Disk Management tool in Server 2019/2022
The same with previous versions, Windows Server 2019/2022 has 2 native tools to help manage disk partition - Disk Management and diskpart. Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) has graphical interface, it is able to create, delete, format partition, set partition Active, change drive letter and path. Diskpart is a command prompt tool, it can do the same thing in a different way.
- How to shrink partition with diskpart in Windows Server 2019
- How to extend volume with diskpart in Windows Server 2019
What does Disk Management do in Server 2019/2022
To an allocated partition, 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 a disk, the options include:
- Open root directory in File Explorer
- Mark partition as Active
- Change drive letter and path
- Format
- Extend Volume
- Shrink Volume
- Add Mirror
- Delete partition
- Properties
Disk Management advanced feature
Change partition size:
The same with previous version, Server 2019 Disk Management has Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions to help resize allocated partition without losing data (in most cases).
But because of some restrictions of both functions, Disk Management cannot extend a partition by shrinking another one. In addition, only NTFS partition can be resized.
Disk conversion:
Disk Management has the option to convert disk between MBR and GPT, convert disk between Basic and Dynamic.
However, it can only convert Basic disk to Dynamic without losing data. To convert Dynamic disk to Basic or convert between MBR and GPT, you must delete all partitions in the disk.
Manage dynamic volumes:
Server 2019 Disk Management is able to create and manage Simple, Mirrored, Striped, Spanned and RAID 5 dynamic volume.
Dynamic disk volumes consume much server resources, if one disk is damaged, all data in this volume will be lost. Hardware price is much cheaper now, so most of servers use hardware RAID arrays instead of dynamic volume.
The safest disk partition tool for Windows Server 2019/2022
There are many disk partition software for Windows Server 2019 and other versions in the market, the GUI and functions are all similar. Different with data read-only program, disk partitioning software will modify the parameters of associated disk, partition and files. So there's potential system damage and data loss risk especially when you shrinking, moving and extending partitions. You'd better make a backup first and run the safest tool.
Better than other disk partition tool, NIUBI Partition Editor has advanced technologies to protect system and data:
- Virtual Mode - all operations will be listed as pending for preview, real disk partitions won't be modified until click "Apply" to confirm.
- Cancel-at-will - if you applied wrong operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations without destroying partitions.
- 1 Second Rollback - if it detects any known error while resizing partition, it automatically reverts server to original status in a flash.
- Hot Clone - clone system disk without server interruption and boot from clone disk immediately whenever system disk is down.
Download this tool and you'll see the main window with disk partition structure and other information on the right. Available operations to selected disk or partition are listed on the left and by right clicking. Unavailable operations are hidden automatically to keep interface clean.
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
Available operations to a partition:
- Resize volume (shrink and extend)
- Move partition location
- Merge two adjacent volumes by 1 step
- Optimize file system
- Copy volume to Unallocated space
- Convert partition between Logical and Primary
- Convert NTFS to FAT32
- 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 with directory)
- View properties
The fastest disk partition software for Server 2019/2022
When selecting a disk partition tool for Windows Server 2019/2022, there's another factor you may ignore - speed. For example, when you shrinking a partition from right to the left or move a partition, the start position of this partition will be changed, so all files in this partition will be moved to new locations. The more files in the partition, the longer time it costs.
Thanks to the advanced file-moving algorithm, NIUBI Partition Editor is 30% to 300% faster than other tools. This is very helpful especially when there are large amount of files and the operations require server rebooting to accomplish.
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