Overview of RAID 5 Volume

 
As you know, there are two disk types called basic disk and dynamic disk. Since Windows Server 2000, there is a concept of the dynamic disk and it can be managed in Windows Disk Management. Compared with the basic disk, there is an obvious feature: five dynamic volumes including simple volume, spanned volume, mirrored volume, striped volume and RAID 5 volume can be created on dynamic disk. In this post, we will introduce you RAID 5 volume in details.
 
Among these five volumes, RAID 5 requires at least 3 hard disks and the capacity of each disk is the same. When the disk size is different, RAID 5 will be subject to the smallest capacity. RAID 5 volume has fault tolerance. That is to say, when there is something wrong with one disk, the data on another two disks are safe. Therefore, RAID 5 volume is used by some of you. Although RAID 5 has such an outstanding merit, low disk space issue still exists on RAID 5 volume since more and more data is saved. Thus, to extend RAID 5 volume is a good choice.
 

How to Extend RAID 5 Volume

 
When it comes to resizing dynamic volume, you probably consider using Windows Disk Management. In fact, this free tool only resizes simple volume and spanned volume. For RAID 5 volume, mirrored volume and stripped volume, Disk Management is useless. If you need to expand RAID 5 volume, what should you do? Don’t worry. Here is a professional partition and disk manager – MiniTool Partition Wizard. It can be used to resize dynamic volume, including all types of dynamic volume. In order to increase RAID 5 volume size, Server Edition is worth recommending.
 
Step 1: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard Server Edition to its main interface. Right click on RAID 5 volume, and then select “Move/Resize Volume” feature.
 
Note: If there is no unallocated space adjacent to RAID 5 volume, you need to resize volume to free up some free disk space.
 

 
Step 2: In the pop-up window, drag the slider to occupy the entire unallocated space. Then click “OK” to go back to the main interface.
 

 
Step 3: Then click “Apply” to execute all operations. MiniTool Partition Wizard will finish all changes during the process of rebooting the computer.
 

 
With the help of MiniTool Partition Wizard, it is easy to extend RAID 5 volume on dynamic disk in Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016. If you are interested in this tool, please download its Demo for a free trial or buy a license code.