What is the disadvantage of dynamic disk?

If we want to use dynamic disk on Windows 2000/XP/20003, It demands using the "Upgrade to dynamic disk" in Disk Management to complete conversion. However, the current Windows Vista/2008 and Windows 7 appear to advocate the usage of dynamic disk. Because, in its Disk Management it can create the dynamic volume directly on basic disk. Meanwhile, the basic disk will convert to the dynamic disk automatically after the creation. This feature will enable us to convert basic disk to dynamic more easily, and the conversion back is very cumbersome. The following describes some problems in using dynamic disk, namely the disadvantage of dynamic disk.

1. After you change a basic disk to a dynamic disk, the dynamic disk cannot be changed directly to the basic disk without third-party tools in case. Firstly, you must delete all volumes on the dynamic disk, and then convert it back to basic disk. We suggest that you should back up this data on the dynamic volume, and then converted back, or directed conversion by using the third-party tools Dynamic Disk Converter.

2. Installing a multi-system on a disk and convert the disk to dynamic disk will lead one of them to be abnormality or failure at startup. For example, Windows 2000 and Windows XP have been installed on the same disk. Changing the disk to dynamic one under the Windows XP and booting the Windows 2000 will result in blue screen of death and it can not start. I consider the main reason is: on the multi-system dynamic disk, each system’s startup totally depends on the partition table, therefore, when you start Windows 2000 system, it doesn't know the current disk is already a dynamic disk and the configuration profiles of Windows 2000 is still the basic disk one, so an error occurs at startup. Conclusion: the best way is not to convert basic disk to dynamic disk in multi-system cases(multi-system exists on one disk).

3. Dynamic disks cannot be accessed by Windows 98/XP home and Dos bootable disc. Suppose that there is a problem on your system to startup, here you want to repair the system errors very difficulty. Recently, Windows Vista and later OS of the bootable disc support dynamic disks. Additionally, dynamic disk cannot be supported by third-party partition management tools, namely Acronis Disk Director, Paragon Partition Manager and Easeus Partition Master and so on.

4. In fact, the superior of dynamic disk can not be brought for the system partition. Spanned Volume and Striped Volume are able to expand the capacity of volume through using the unallocated space of multiple disks, for system partition is only a simple volume and it can not exist in multi-disk. In addition, the spanned and striped volume could not be accessed if one of the disks is damaged.

5. The problem is whether Windows Vista/2008 and Windows 7 can be installed on dynamic disk or not. In order to guarantee data’s security, their installation program dose not allow operating system is installed on dynamic disk. But, with exception, OS can be installed on the dynamic system volume. For example, first install a Vista to a basic disk, and then change the basic to dynamic disk, and on the dynamic disk you can directly install a OS (such as Windows 7 etc.) to replace the originate the Vista. For Windows 2000/XP/2003, their installer can not ensure data’s security as well as Vista, usually the other dynamic volume will be destroyed during the installation, so we suggest that you can first employ Dynamic Disk Converter to convert dynamic back to basic, and then install system to avoid data having been damage.

Finally, to let the Operating System to run normally, we won’t suggest you will disk with OS upgrade to dynamic disk. But you still don't be worry that the non-system disks are converted to dynamic disk and benefits!