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Difference between Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk
Both basic disk and dynamic disk are disk configurations available in Windows Operating System. A basic disk is from initial days of DOS, Windows to till date. Dynamic Disk is available from Window 2000 onwards.
Basic Disk
Basic Disk Configuration works on the concept of partition, partition table, and logical drives. A disk can have up to four partitions or three partitions and one extended partition with multiple logical drives. The following operations can be performed in basic disk configuration.
Create/Delete primary/extended partition.
Create/Delete logical drives within an extended partition.
Format a partition and mark as active.
Dynamic Disk
Dynamic Disk Configuration works on the concept of volumes. It is more flexible than the basic disk configuration. A partition can be extended using dynamic disk configuration. The following operations can be performed in dynamic disk configuration.
Create/Delete simple/spanned/striped/mirrored and RAID-5 volumes.
Extend a simple/spanned volume.
Reactivate a missing/offline disk.
The following are some of the important differences between Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk.
| Sr. No. | Key | Basic Disk | Dynamic Disk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Concept | In Basic Disk, a hard drive is divided into fixed partitions. | In Dynamic Disk, a hard drive is divided into dynamic volumes. |
| 2 | Limits | A hard drive can have at max 3 or 4 partitions with one secondary extended partition. | Dynamic Disk has no such limitation. |
| 3 | Types | Partitions are of two types: MBR partition and GPT partition. | Volumes are of the following types: simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. |
| 4 | Conversion | Basic Disk can be converted into Dynamic Disk Configuration without losing any data. | To Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk conversion, we have to delete all volumes of a dynamic disk. |
| 5 | Updates | In Basic Disk, partitions once created cannot be changed. | In Dynamic Disk, volumes can be extended. |
| 6 | Multiboot | Basic Disk supports multi-boot configurations. | Dynamic Disk does not support multi-boot configurations. |
| 7 | Compatability | Basic Disk is supported on old windows operating systems as well. | Dynamic Disk is supported from Windows 2000 onwards only. |
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