Hardware RAID arrays are standard storage devices in a server. In most cases, RAID 1 is used for the operating system and programs, while RAID 5 is used for saving data. Hardware RAID has many advantages over a single disk. Before saving files to a RAID array, you also need to initialize, create and format partition. Just like a physical disk, you need to shrink a large RAID partition to create more volumes or extend the RAID partition when it is running out of space. This article introduces how to resize RAID partition in Windows Server 2019/2022 safely without losing data.
Is There Any Difference Between Resizing RAID Partitions and Physical Drives
Many people think it is complicated to resize a virtual partition on a RAID array, but it's not. Hardware RAID arrays are built with 2 or more physical hard disk drives, and the advantages are realized by the RAID card/controller. After building the RAID array, you get a virtual disk in Disk Management and it's numbered the same as a single disk. To both the operating system and NIUBI Partition Editor, there's no difference whether you use a single SSD, mechanical HDD, or RAID array. Better than Windows Disk Management and other disk partition software, NIUBI Partition Editor shows the model of all storage devices on the main window. So you'll see clearly the interface (SATA, SCSI, USB, NVMe, etc.) of a single disk, and the RAID array will be marked, too.
When you resize a RAID partition in Windows Server 2019/2022 and other versions, do not break the RAID array or do any operations to the RAID controller. Just follow the steps below.
How to Resize RAID Partition in Windows Server 2019/2022
Like previous versions, Windows Server 2019/2022 has 2 native tools - Disk Management and the diskpart command tool. Both tools can shrink and extend partition without losing data in most cases. However, they cannot extend a partition by shrinking another one. To be accurate, they can only shrink an NTFS partition to create a new volume, or extend an NTFS partition by deleting the contiguous partition on the right side.
- How to shrink and extend partition boundaries with Disk Management
- How to shrink and extend partition blocks with diskpart command
To resize a RAID 1/5/10 partition in Windows Server 2019/2022, third-party software is more powerful. However, you'd better make a backup in advance and run safe partitioning software. Better than other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor is much safer and faster because of advanced technologies:
- Virtual Mode - all operations are listed as pending for preview, and real disk partitions won't be modified until you click "Apply" to confirm.
- Cancel-at-will - if you applied wrong operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations at any progress before finishing.
- 1 Second Rollback - if any known error is detected while resizing partitions, it automatically reverts the server to its original status in a flash.
- Hot Clone - clone disk partition without rebooting, so you can clone the system disk regularly as a backup and boot from the clone disk immediately when the system disk is down.
Launch NIUBI Partition Editor, and you'll see all storage devices with partition structures and other detailed information. Available operations to the selected disk or partition are listed on the left and by right-clicking, while unavailable operations are hidden automatically.
In most cases, there is free space in other virtual partitions on the same RAID array. To shrink and extend a RAID partition in Windows Server 2019/2022, you just need to drag and drop on the disk map. Follow the steps in the video.
Steps to extend system partition C by shrinking data volume:
Steps to extend a data partition by shrinking another one:
How to Extend RAID Partition When the RAID Array Is Full
If the RAID array is almost full, it is more complicated than a single hard disk when extending a RAID partition in a Windows server.
To hardware RAID 1:
RAID 1 is built with 2 hard disks, and you cannot increase the RAID 1 size by replacing them with larger disks one by one. If you do it like that, you'll get another RAID 1 with the same size, and the remaining space will be wasted.
Steps to extend RAID 1 partition in Windows Server 2019/2022 safely:
- Build a new RAID 1 with 2 larger disks.
- Follow the method in the video to copy original RAID 1 to the new one.
- Change BIOS settings and boot from this new RAID 1.
If you cannot connect 2 RAID 1 arrays to the server at the same time, follow these steps:
- Insert a single hard disk into this server.
- Copy the original RAID 1 to this disk (there's no difference when copying between a RAID array and a single disk).
- Change BIOS settings and boot from the single hard disk.
- Build a new RAID 1 and copy data from this single disk.
- Boot from the new RAID 1 array.
If your RAID controller has the ability to rebuild RAID 1 without losing data, it's much easier. Just follow the steps:
- Copy the original RAID 1 data to one of the larger disks, and remember to extend partitions with extra space.
- Rebuild the RAID 1 array with the other larger disk.
To hardware RAID 5:
RAID 5 arrays are built with at least 3 hard disk drives. When the RAID 5 array is full, first make sure your RAID controller can rebuild the array without losing data. If yes, to extend a RAID 5 array in Windows Server 2019/2022, you may either add a new disk or replace the existing disks with larger ones. After rebuilding the array, the additional space is shown as unallocated space at the end of the disk. Then follow the steps to move and merge unallocated space to other partitions.
Besides shrinking, extending, moving, and copying disk partitions, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you perform many other disk partition management operations.
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