Storage types and partition styles
Windows XP Professional and offer two types of disk storage: basic disk and dynamic disk.
Basic disks
A basic disk is a physical disk that contains primary partitions, extended partitions, or logical drives. You can perform the following tasks only on a basic disk:
| • | Create and delete primary and extended partitions |
| • | Create and delete logical drives within an extended partition. |
| • | Format a partition and mark it as active |
| • | Check disk properties, such as capacity, available free space, and current status. |
| • | View volume and partition properties such as size, drive letter assignment, label, type, and file system. |
| • | Establish drive letter assignments for volumes or partitions, optical storage devices (for example CD-ROM), and removable drives. |
| • | Establish disk sharing and security arrangements for volumes and partitions formatted with NTFS. |
| • | Convert a basic disk to dynamic. |
For more information about converting a disk from basic to dynamic, see Converting a basic disk to dynamic
For more information about basic disks and volumes, see Basic disks and volumes
Dynamic disks
Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes), and the ability to create fault-tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). All volumes on dynamic disks are known as dynamic volumes. You can perform the following tasks only on a dynamic disk:
| • | Create and delete simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes. |
| • | Extend a simple or spanned volume. |
| • | Remove a mirror from a mirrored volume or split the volume into two volumes. |
| • | Repair mirrored or RAID-5 volumes. |
| • | Reactivate a missing or offline disk. |
| • | Check disk properties, such as capacity, available free space, and current status. |
| • | View volume and partition properties such as size, drive letter assignment, label, type, and file system. |
| • | Establish drive letter assignments for volumes or partitions, optical storage devices (for example CD-ROM), and removable drives. |
| • | Establish disk sharing and security arrangements for volumes and partitions formatted with NTFS. |
| • | Change a dynamic disk to basic. |
For more information about dynamic disks and volumes, see Dynamic disks and volumes
Partition styles
Partition style refers to the method that Windows XP and use to organize partitions on the disk. All x86-based computers use the partition style known as master boot record (MBR) MBR contains a partition table that describes where the partitions are located on the disk. Because MBR is the only partition style available on x86-based computers, you do not need to choose this style; it is used automatically.
Itanium-based computers running Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, Whistler Advanced Server for Intel Itanium systems, or Whistler Datacenter Server for Intel Itanium systems use a new partition style called GUID partition table (GPT) There are some differences between GPT and MBR partition styles, but most disk-related tasks are unchanged. Basic disks and dynamic disks work the same way as in Windows 2000, and these storage types are available on disks that use either partition style. For more information about GPT disks, see GUID partition table (GPT)
Computers running Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, Whistler Advanced Server for Intel Itanium systems, or Whistler Datacenter Server for Intel Itanium systems require a GPT disk that contains an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) System partition and the files necessary to start the computer. You can also install MBR disks on Itanium-based systems, but you cannot start a system from them. For more information about EFI and EFI System partitions, see Extensible Firmware Interface
In order to more easily differentiate between disks that use the MBR and GPT partition styles, Disk Management labels disks that use the master boot record partition style as MBR disks, while disks that use the GUID partition table partition style are labeled GPT disks.
The following table depicts storage types and partition styles in Windows XP and :
| Operating system | Storage types | Partition styles | |||
Basic volumes | Dynamic simple, spanned, and stripped volumes | Dynamic mirrored and RAID-5 volumes | |||
Windows XP Home Edition | X |
| |||
Windows XP Professional | X | X | |||
Whistler | X | X | |||
Whistler Advanced Server | X | X | |||
Whistler Server | X | X | |||
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition | X | X | |||
Whistler Advanced Server for Intel Itanium systems | X | X | |||
Whistler Datacenter Server for Intel Itanium systems | X | X |