Converting Basic disk to Dynamic disk in Vista

[Sunday Ironfoot]

I have a RAID 0 setup on my computer with 4 partitions configured. I only allowed 30GB for my C drive thinking it would be enough, and now I'm desperately running out of space on that partition, but have loads of room on other partitions.

I heard converting my drives over to a Dynamic disk lets you adjust partitions sizes to your hearts content, but are there any issues with doing this? Will performance be effected? Compatibility issues?

Is there another way I can increase the size of my C partition without going over to Dynamic partitions?

I'm running Vista Ultimate.

 

[bsobel]

Performance no, compatibility yes with other OS's and some tools that arent dynamic disk aware. If your not dual booting you should be fine.

 

[RebateMonger]

Be sure that you can actually extend a system partition by converting the disk to dynamic:

UseNet thread discussion using Dynamic Disk conversion to expand a System Partition:

"I have on a WIN 2K Server a HD with two partitions (C: and D: ), both NTFS.
I need more space on C: so I thought on resizing on the direction C: => D:

The only way I thought this would be possible was to configure the disk to
dynamic partition. After doing this I tried to "Extend Volume" and I got the
message:

"The selected volume was originally created on a basic disk and cannot be
extended. Only volumes originally created on dynamic disks can be
extended." "

Personally, I'd avoid dynamic disks unless there are absolutely no other options. I'd back up all the partitions, re-partition the disk, and restore the data. Alternatively, you can use Partition Magic or other partitioning software.

Finally, consider NOT doing partitions on a single hard disk. It causes complications like this and provides very few benefits. People do it to AVOID having to restore all their data in case of a single partition failure. But now, as you see, you've introduced a whole other problem. It's VERY hard to create the "correct" partition size. So you eventually end up with "wrong-size" partitions that create their own headaches.