Volumes can use any supported file system.īasic disks can be upgraded to dynamic disks however, when this is done the disk cannot easily be downgraded to a basic disk again. Dynamic storage involves the use of a single partition that covers the entire disk, and the disk itself is divided into volumes or combined with other disks to form volumes that are greater in size than one disk itself. This is the route that all versions of Windows that were reliant on DOS-handled storage took, and disks formatted in this manner are known as basic disks. (For more information on the difference, see Basic and dynamic disks and volumes, below.)īasic storage involves dividing a disk into primary and extended partitions. Dynamic volumes can be enlarged to include more free space - either from the same disk or another physical disk. Basic partitions are restricted to a fixed size on one physical disk. Basic volumes and dynamic volumes differ in their ability to extend storage beyond one physical disk.

Logical Disk Manager enables disk volumes to be dynamic, in contrast to the standard basic volume format. On Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, Microsoft deprecated LDM in favor of Storage Spaces. The MMC-based Disk Management snap-in ( diskmgmt.msc) hosts the Logical Disk Manager.

It was introduced with the Windows 2000 operating system, and is supported in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Logical Disk Manager ( LDM) is an implementation of a logical volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT, developed by Microsoft and Veritas Software.

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