5.6.1 add storage.txt

Let’s say that I have a single hard disk that is formatted as my C: drive. Over time I’ve saved files and installed applications and now the hard drive is full. I’ve run out of storage space on my computer. Of course, one solution is to install a new a hard drive, format it, and assign it as the D: ...

Let’s say that I have a single hard disk that is formatted as my C: drive. Over time I’ve saved files and installed applications and now the hard drive is full. I’ve run out of storage space on my computer. Of course, one solution is to install a new a hard drive, format it, and assign it as the D: drive. This would work except now I need to remember which files are on my C: drive and which files are on my D: drive. And If I’ve been shifting files back and forth, I might not remember where all the files are located. But what if my C: drive was full, that would mean that my system drive was full. So, there would be no space to install updates for Windows. In addition to that, some of my applications require that they run on the system partition. In this case, adding an extra hard drive doesn’t help me. If I install those applications on the new hard drive they won’t run without the system files. They have to be in the same partition as the system drive, but the system drive is full. In this video, we’ll learn how to add space to an existing volume when it becomes full. One solution to the problem is to use a mount point. With a mount point, I install a new hard drive. Then, using the free space in that hard drive, I create and format a partition, but I don’t assign the drive letter to it. On my system drive, I create a new, empty folder on the file system. And then I map or mount a volume to this empty folder. Now, all this space that’s on this new hard disk appears as if it’s part of this volume. Now when I access the files on this drive, all I have to do is browse the file system on my original drive to the folder I created as a mount point. When I open the folder, I have access to the files that exist on this hard drive. In order to use a mount point, there are some rules that you must follow. First, the folder must be empty. Second, the partition must be formatted with NTFS. Mount points work on either a basic or a dynamic disk. In fact, one of the strengths of using a mount point is that we do not need to upgrade the basic disk to dynamic disk to create a mount point. Another solution for adding space to an existing volume is to extend the volume. Let’s look at different ways to extend volumes. In this example, instead of using a circle to represent my hard disk we use a linear line to represent the hard disk. Then we’ll add the existing partitions. Here I have the C; drive along with some free space. Then I have a D: drive assigned along with more additional space. Let’s squeeze another one in there on the end. We’ll have an E: drive with some more free space. All of these partitions exist on the same physical disk. When you extend the volume, you simply take some free space and add that to an existing volume. So, for instance, for my D: volume I could extent that to occupy the additional free space that was next to it. And now I have a larger volume than I originally started with. When extending volumes this way, you need to be aware of where the location of the free space is in relation to the drive that I want to expand. Contiguous space is free space that is directly next to an existing volume. So this free space here is contiguous to my C: volume. This free space here is contiguous to the E: volume. If this disk is a basic disk, you can extend partitions only to contiguous space. For example, I can take my the E: drive and extend it to the space that is here but I can not extend my D: drive to the free space on the end. Non-contiguous space is free space that is not directly next to the volume that you want to expand. So this free space here is not contiguous to the E: drive. Because it is not next to that drive. And similarly, this free space here is not contiguous to the C: drive. If I were to upgrade this basic disk to a dynamic disk, I could now extend a volume to non-contiguous space on the same disk. For instance, my D: drive could use the space on the end of the disk. But the rule about the system partition remains. Even on a dynamic disk, my C: drive cannot be extended to any free space that is not contiguous. One of the rules when extending an existing volume is that the system drive can be only extended to free space that is contiguous to that drive. So in this case, I can extend my C: drive to the free space here but I cannot extend it to the free space on the end of the disk. In addition to using free space in the same disk, I can add a second disk and create partitions and free space on that disk. I can also take an existing volume on one disk and extend it to free space on a different disk. Using the contiguous and non-contiguous rules, you can determine how to extend your volumes to the second disk. If this were a basic disk, I can only extend my volume to contiguous free space. Extending onto a separate disk is not allowed when the disk is a basic disk. However, if I have a dynamic disk, then I can extend my volume to free space on a separate disk. This configuration is known as a spanned volume. It contains space from two different physical hard drives. A system volume can only be extended to contiguous free space regardless of whether it is a basic or a dynamic disk. So a system volume cannot be spanned to a second disk. When you extend the volume onto another disk, you’re only adding space to that disk. You are not adding other benefits like fault tolerance or an increase in speed. Let’s review the rules for extending volumes. The first thing you need to know is whether your hard disk is a basic disk or a dynamic disk. On a basic disk, you can extend all volumes to contiguous free space. This includes the system volume. If you have a dynamic disk, you can extend and span all volumes using non-contiguous free space. However, the system volume can be only be extended to contiguous free space. It cannot span volumes. One final rule for extending and spanning is that the volumes must be formatted with NTFS. If you’re using any other file system, you’ll need to convert your volumes to NTFS before you can extend them. To add space to an existing volume, you can use either a volume mount point or you can extend the volume. Those solutions require that the existing volume use the NTFS file system. Mount points can be used for volumes on either basic or dynamic disks. You can extend volumes on basic disks to contiguous free space on the same disk or you can use dynamic disks to add free space on a different disk. And remember that the system volume has special restrictions.