Basic To Dynamic Disk - Server 2012 r2

Question

Dear Team,

We have an existing storage partition (E&F) in our server 2012r2. Partition E & F is in Raid 5. E & F partitions having 3.5 Tb storage each (total 7 Tb). We are using an HP server. Last week I have added a 1.2 Tb HDD in to raid 5 and expanded the existing storage at the hardware level.

Now I can see the unused space in Disc management (Right side of F), when I try to expand the "E" partition at last it showing convert to dynamic disc. is this a recommended way? as I know if we do a hardware level expansion it's not required to convert basic to Dynamic Disk. Please advise is there any issue if I convert to Dynamic Disc.

(in these partitions, we have some custom NTFS folder permission, Share folders and DFS sync folders.)

OS : Windows Server 2012R2

Disk 0 (OS): RAID 1, MBR (C & D)

Disk 1 (Data): RAID 5, GPT (E & F)

Answer 1

You should be able to extend the volume without the need to convert dynamic.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/extend-a-basic-volume

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Answer 2

Hi,

Thank you for posting the question to Q&A forum.

As for as I know, RAID-5 volume use three or more specified dynamic disks. So, I am not sure if you configure RAID 5 successfully on only one disk.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/create-volume-raid

I did a lab test in my environment. Once RAID-5 was configured, the disks will be automatically converted to Dynamic. And it seems there is no option to expand the volume. Please kindly check your disk management and see if it is similar as below screenshot shows.

Also, below article describes the difference between Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk. You can read it for reference.
Difference between Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk

Thanks,

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Answer 3

You should be able to extend the volume without the need to convert dynamic but to do natively the free unallocated space will need to be adjacent.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/extend-a-basic-volume

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--