How to extend partition/volume in Windows Server 2008 R2
Disk partitions are allocated by server manufacturer or by yourself when building the server. Is it possible to extend a partition when it is getting full? Windows 2008 server has running for so many years and C: drive is running out of space. It can’t be better if you can enlarge C drive without starting over or recreate partitions and restore everything from backup. In this article, I’ll introduce how to extend partition in Windows Server 2008 (R2) without losing data.
Extend Volume in Server 2008 R2 with native tool
Some server administrators like to use Windows native tool, there’s indeed a Disk Management tool in Windows Server 2008. Better than previous version, Server 2008 has “Extend Volume” option built in Disk Management. It has graphical interface. Besides this tool, there’s a command prompt tool – diskpart to extend server 2008 partition.
However, there’s a big issue to extend partition with either Disk Management or diskpart command. You must delete the adjacent partition on the right and add space to the left partition. Furthermore, these 2 partitions must be the same Primary or Logical.
To extend partition in Windows Server 2008 (R2), third party software is better choice. You can shrink a partition to get Unallocated space and merge to other partition on the same disk, no matter these 2 partition are NTFS or FAT32, Primary or Logical, contiguous or nonadjacent. Before extending your Windows 2008 partition, there are several points you should know.
Points you should know before extending volume
- The partitions to shrink and extend must be on the same disk, no software can extend partition with space on another disk.
- The steps to extend virtual disk partition in VMware/Hyper-V are the same with extending physical disk partition.
- If you use hardware RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 .etc), do not break the RAID array or do any operation to RAID controller, the steps to extend Server 2008 partition are the same, too.
- Back up the server in advance and run safe disk partition software.
Better than other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor has Virtual Mode and Cancel-at-well technology to avoid wrong operations. Another 1-Second Rollback technology can revert server to original status automatically if it detects any error. Furthermore, it is 30% – 300% faster to resize partition because of its special file-moving algorithm. These ability are very helpful and important to protect your data and save time.
How to extend volume in Windows Server 2008 R2:
Step 1: Download and install NIUBI Partition Editor, right click drive D: and click “Resize/Move Volume“.
Step 2: In the pop-up window, drag the left border rightwards to shrink D drive and make Unallocated space on the left.
Click OK and back to the main window, D drive is shrunk in Virtual Mode and a pending operation is added on bottom left.
Step 3: Right click C drive and select “Resize/Move Volume” again, in the pop-up window, drag the right border rightwards to combine this Unallocated space.
Click OK and back to the main window, C drive is extended in Virtual Mode. Click Apply on top left to take effect.
If there is not enough free space in D, you may shrink other partition on the same disk. Watch the video how to extend Server 2008 volume.
Besides shrinking and extending partition in Windows Server 2008/2012/2016/2019/2022, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk/partition management operations.