Comparing Dynamic Disks with Basic Disks - 26 Jan 2007

What are the advantages and disadvantages of dynamic disks versus basic disks?

Dynamic disks are simply physical disks with dynamic volumes on them. Only Windows 2000 and later can recognize dynamic disks. The advantage of dynamic disks is that you can create a volume that spans disks; you can create RAID 1 and RAID 5 volumes in Windows Server 2003 and Win2K Server. The disadvantage of dynamic disks is that you must delete all volumes on a dynamic disk before you can revert the disk back to a basic disk. Another major disadvantage of dynamic disks is the near absence of tools to fix the disk if it has corrupt sectors on it.

—Bob Chronister