What is the new volume on the computer. How a disk partition differs from a volume

The terms "partition" and "volume" are the same for many users, but in fact they are fundamentally different in the context of computer architecture. The term "volume" is synonymous with the word "disk", and is a separate storage area with its own file system, while a partition is a basic structural unit that can be split into one or more volumes. Unfortunately, the release of computer hardware with pre-partitioned and formatted disks has resulted in most users having no idea of ​​the difference between a partition and a volume. But if you are going to change the disk structure of your computer, then you should understand this well.

Disk partitions

A section is a structural unit hard disk, which divides the storage resource into multiple virtual units. Partitions are a standard object that is easily recognized by all modern operating systems. At the same time, not all operating systems are able to well detect volumes located on disk partitions. Most manufacturers sell their equipment with only one disk partition, but if this is not enough for you and you want to change the disk structure, you need to use the standard panel Windows management 7. Select the "System and Security" section in it and you will find in it the "Administrative Tools" section of the administration, which, among others, includes a utility for managing the structure of local disks. In addition, you can change the disk layout when installing the operating system.

Section types

There are two types of partitions: primary and extended. Most operating systems only need the main partition to function properly. Only one volume can be created on each primary partition. An extended partition is a special type of partition that can contain multiple volumes (or logical drives) of your choice, the total size of which cannot exceed the size of the extended partition. In total, you can create up to four partitions on one physical disk, one of which can be expanded.

Volume

The volume is analogous to the system disk. After creating a disk structure from partitions, you can create a logical disk or volume from each partition, format it and thus get into operating system multiple separate disks, just as it looks like when multiple physical disks are attached to a computer. Each of these volumes is independent and you can format them without fear of damaging data on other logical drives. All volumes can be managed through the "Disk Management" utility, which is launched via context menu under "Computer" or Control Panel.

Benefits of creating multiple partitions and logical drives

Although it takes time to create multiple partitions and volumes on a single physical disk, there are many advantages to such a disk structure. Partitioning the disk makes it possible to preserve the operability of one partition, while the file system (FS) of another partition has become inoperative due to system errors of the FS or detection bad sectors... In addition, the time to scan, format, and defragment small logical drives is significantly faster than full drives. This division also allows you to separate the system drive from other information, which allows you to reinstall the operating system or restore it from an image without any problems, while preserving your personal and multimedia data.

Most users know that somewhere in the depths system unit their computer has a "hard drive" or hard drive. To us, it appears simply as small device in the form of a box. However, the inside of the hard drive is much more complex than it seems, it consists of many platters. This is, so to speak, the physical component of the disk. But at the logical level, a hard disk can be divided into several more disks. There are several types of disks and partitions that we will try to understand.

First of all, let's clarify the concept of a partition. This is the area of ​​the hard drive that is assigned a drive letter after formatting. When creating a partition, a special record (master boot record) is created, it indicates the clusters, the space between which will be considered a separate disk. When a partition is created on it, a specific file system is created. The section is sometimes referred to as volume.

Basic ( systemic) chapter contains system Windows files... The system partition is usually assigned the letter C. Windows first the three sections created are the main sections. A computer may contain several main partitions with its own operating system. In this case, loading occurs precisely from the main section, which in this moment is active.

Active section- this is the main section from which the computer boots.

Additional section does not contain system files, Windows does not boot from it. The main purpose of such a section is to store personal files of the user, music, graphics, texts, videos, games, etc. The advantage of storing data on different partitions is that if the primary partition fails, it will be enough to reinstall Windows, while the rest of the user information recorded on the secondary partition will remain intact.

You can create an additional partition only if there is unallocated space on the disk (unformatted space that is not part of an existing partition or volume). Can be squeezed existing volume or use a third-party partition repartition utility to create unallocated space.

Creating additional partitions is a way to get around the limit on the number of primary partitions per basic disk... A secondary partition is a container that contains one or more logical drives. Logical disks work the same way as primary partitions, except that they cannot start the operating system.

Logical disk Is actually not the same as a section. A logical disk is a part of a secondary partition, identical to it only if it occupies the entire secondary partition. Logical disks are created in an additional partition and have their own logical structure, which allows them to be used as independent physical disks (with the only restriction that they cannot be removed from the computer). The presence of a logical disk is required to operate the additional partition.

Basic disk uses main sections, additional sections and logical drives... In Windows Vista, basic disks can contain four primary partitions, or three primary and one additional. An additional partition can contain multiple logical drives (up to 128 logical drives are supported). Basic disk partitions cannot share or share information with other partitions. Each partition on a basic disk is a separate physical disk object.

Dynamic disk can contain about 2,000 dynamic volumes that have the same functionality as basic partitions on basic disks. In some Windows versions you can combine separate dynamic hard drives into a single dynamic volume (distribution) or split data between several hard disks (striping) to improve performance, as well as duplicate data on several hard drives(mirroring) to improve reliability. Dynamic disks are only supported on Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Ultimate.

Both basic and dynamic disk are types of hard disk configuration in the Windows operating system. For most users, disks are configured as basic disks because they are easy to manage. For advanced users for fast and reliable data storage, it is more convenient to use dynamic disks that use multiple hard disks.

Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Enterprise support striping and striping, but not mirroring. (Windows Server 2008 version supports mirroring.)

External drive ( pluggable) usually presented in the form of a flash drive or mobile hard drive. Both connect via USB port and when connected, they immediately receive a letter. If the connected disk is formatted in the FAT32 system, then it can be used as a bootable one.

Virtual disk created by CD emulator programs. One such program can create multiple virtual disks. The letter for each disk is selected by the user from the list of available (unused) letters. Let's name the most popular virtual disk emulator programs:, Alcohol, VirtualCD.

All operations for creating partitions, assigning a drive letter, and formatting are performed in the window Computer management... It opens in the menu Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools... In chapter Disk management all disks defined by the system are displayed. Right-clicking on the selected drive opens a menu with available functions.

In Windows, mounted hard drives are initialized to a basic drive type by default. Basic, they are also basic disks are compatible with all versions of Windows. it regular discs on which the main (primary) and logical partitions are created. The basic disk type is defined for most storage media in users' computer devices.

But, being more common, basic disks offer less functionality than other types of disks - dynamic, floppy, and custom disks. What are dynamic disks, what are their capabilities, pros and cons, how partitions are created on such disks using Windows tools - we will consider these issues below.

1. About dynamic disks

Dynamic disks is a technology borrowed from Microsoft under license and shipped with Windows 2000 and later and is a software implementation of RAID arrays. The technology is not supported in Windows Home editions.

Dynamic disk technology is additional features on space allocation hard drives for the convenience of working with data, ensuring their safety, as well as increasing computer performance by combining the speed of different disks. Dynamic disks offer capabilities not supported by base-type disks, such as:

• increasing the size of partitions at the expense of space on the entire disk, and not only if there is adjacent free space (unallocated space);
• support for partitions created from the volume of several hard drives;
• support for major RAID configurations.

Among the advantages of this technology is a higher degree of reliability than using cheap RAID controllers. But only when it comes to cheap RAID controllers with their drawbacks such as driver errors or the likelihood of data loss. Naturally, the technology in Windows is inferior to full-fledged expensive RAID controllers. In terms of removing the load from the processor, in principle, any hardware RAID will be more efficient than one implemented using software tools... But expensive RAID controllers will perform their tasks at the expense of their own resources, and offer wider functionality and provide fault tolerance.

Dynamic disks have other drawbacks as well. They cannot be accessed from devices based on earlier versions of the system (starting with Windows XP Home and below). On dynamic disks, only one Windows systems, the existence of another Windows on a different partition is impossible.

During the reinstallation of Windows (its modern versions 7, 8.1 and 10), only a single partition of the dynamic disk will be available for formatting and selection as the system one - the partition on which Windows was previously located before the reinstallation.

Reinstalling Windows on a dynamic disk can take a long time. Often, because the new system sees the dynamic disk as a disk with errors, it starts the Chkdsk service to scan and fix errors. The intrusive activity of Chkdsk is also encountered by users who have connected a dynamic disk to a computer, taken from another computer. To surely avoid problems with reinstalling Windows on a dynamic disk, it can be converted to basic before this process. And after reinstalling the system, perform the reverse process of converting the disk to dynamic.

Partitions on dynamic disks, like on basic ones, are set by default to format in file system NTFS. The maximum partition size on dynamic MBR disks is 2 TB, and on dynamic GPT disks it is 18 TB. For dynamic disks, there is no concept of primary and logical partitions as there are for basic disks. Partitions of dynamic disks have their own specifics, and they are not related to restrictions on the number of partitions created. As for the number of possible partitions, there is no limit for dynamic disks.

2. Converting basic disks to dynamic

You can convert disks from basic to dynamic by means of Windows itself, using the diskmgmt.msc utility (disk management). In all versions of Windows, it is invoked by pressing the Win + R keys (launching the "Run" window) and entering:

Any of the disks on your computer can be converted from basic to dynamic. This transformation is done in two ways. The first method is manual conversion, when the context menu is called on the disk and the "Convert to dynamic disk" option is enabled.

Choosing this method, then you need to either leave only the current drive, or check the boxes on all connected drives for batch conversion.

We confirm the decision in the window with a notification that other Windows on other disk partitions will no longer be able to start.

Everything, after these actions, the disk will turn into a dynamic one.

Another way to convert a disk to dynamic is to start dynamic disk operations. And those are provided on the basic disk, if only it was with unallocated space. In this case, the dynamic type of the operated disk is assigned by default.

With the reverse process - - the situation is more complicated. Thus, dynamic disks with unallocated space can be converted into basic disks easily: to do this, open the context menu on the disk and enable the "Convert to basic disk" option.

In addition, when you delete partitions on a dynamic disk, it is automatically converted to basic. But if a dynamic disk already has a partition structure, turn it into a basic one Windows tools will not work. But such an opportunity is available in Acronis Disk Director - functional program to work with disk space. The program can convert dynamic disks to basic ones without losing files stored on such disks.

3. Creating partitions on dynamic disks using Windows

What are the specifics of partitions (volumes) created on dynamic disks? How are dynamic disk volumes created?

3.1. Simple volume

A simple volume on a dynamic disk is a regular partition, just like the one created on a basic disk. It can only be created from free space on one medium. To create it on free space a dynamic disk, you need to open the context menu, then select "Create a simple volume" and go through the steps of the wizard.

3.2. Composite volume

A spanned volume is created from the volume of multiple hard drives. The creation of spanned volumes is resorted to when it is necessary to form one large partition from several hard drives, for example, from old HDDs with a volume of 80 GB. The maximum number of hard disks from the space of which a spanned volume can be formed is 32. When data is moved to a spanned volume, files are written sequentially - first to one HDD, then another, then a third, etc. A spanned volume is vulnerable: if one hard disk fails, user files can be lost even though other disks are healthy. In a spanned volume, everything is interconnected, and without one of the chain links - one of the disks - the partition will simply cease to exist.

To create a spanned volume, on the free space of one of the disks, open the context menu and click "Create spanned volume".

All basic parameters of the partition are set in the disk selection window. In the "Available" column, select the available hard disks and transfer them to the "Selected" column with the "Add" button. Below, for any of the added disks, we can set a specific size allocated for the spanned volume, if not all disk space is allocated.

And upon completion, click "Finish". After that, we will see the created spanned volume, located on several disks.

3.3. Striped volume

A striped volume (RAID 0 configuration) is created from two or more hard disks and is filled with data not sequentially, as provided by the arrangement of the spanned volume, but in parallel. Data is simultaneously written to all disks and also read from all disks at the same time, which allows to increase the speed of operations. True, the speed of data access will in any case be determined by the capabilities of the slower disk. An interleaved volume, like a composite volume, cannot boast of fault tolerance. If one of the disks fails, you will not be able to access the files on the striped volume.

A striped volume is created in the context menu on a free disk space, the option to select is, respectively, "Create striped volume".

In the window for selecting disks, using the "Add" button, add another disk from among the available ones to the existing disk. The amount of space allocated by the disks must be the same. The striped volume will be automatically sized according to the amount of free space available on one of the drives.

The next steps for creating a striped volume are the same as described for a spanned volume.

3.4. Mirrored volume

A mirrored volume (RAID 1 configuration) is the ability to create a fault-tolerant array of two disks using Windows tools. This configuration is intended purely to ensure the safety of information; it does not add performance to the computer due to the total speed of reading and writing disks. The data is written to one disk and immediately duplicated to the second disk. And if one of the disks fails, all the accumulated user information will remain intact and safe on the second disk.

To create a mirrored volume, call the context menu on the free space, select "Create mirrored volume".

In the window for selecting disks, using the "Add" button, attach another disk to one of the disks. The size of the mirrored volume will be automatically detected free space one of the disks. You can manually set the size of the volume if necessary.

3.5. Volume RAID-5

A RAID-5 volume is, as the name suggests, a software implementation of a RAID 5 configuration. Such a volume can be created in server editions of Windows.

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