From Windows 2000 onwards, started to introduce the concept of dynamic disks, a

nd as early as in the DOS era began to use basic disks. However, they have their
own advantages and disadvantages. Here is a detailed article to discuss the dif
ference between basic disk and dynamic disk in Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista a
nd Windows 7.
Overview
Basic Disk
Basic Disk uses a partition table to manage all partitions on the disk, and it i
s supported by DOS and all Windows versions. A disk with installed OS would be d
efault initialized to a basic one. A basic disk contains basic volumes, such as
primary partitions, extended partition, and all logical partitions are contained
in extended partition.
Dynamic Disk
Dynamic Disk is supported in Windows 2000 and later operating system. Dynamic di
sks do not use a partition table to track all partitions, but use a hidden datab
ase (LDM) to track information about dynamic volumes or dynamic partitions on th
e disk. With dynamic disks you can create volumes that span multiple disks such
as spanned and striped volumes, and can also create fault-tolerant volumes such
as mirrored volumes and RAID 5 volumes. Compared to a Basic Disk, Dynamic Disk o
ffers greater flexibility.
Detailed differences
* Essential difference
Basic Disks use a Partition Table to manage all partitions on the basic di
sk.
Dynamic Disks use a hidden LDM database to manage all volumes on the dynam
ic disk.
* Support for each Windows
Basic Disks is supported by all Windows and include MSDOS, Win95/98/Me/NT/
2000/XP/2003/ 2008/Vista/Windows 7.
Dynamic Disks is supported by Win2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista and Windows 7, bu
t isn't supported by MSDOS, Win95/98/Me/NT and Windows XP Home Edition.
* Change capacity for partitions
Basic Disks once create a partition, you can not change its capacity, unle
ss use third-party tools.
Dynamic Disks without restarting system expand the capacity of volumes, an
d don t loss of data.
* Disk space limited
Basic Disks, the maximum capacity of a partition (volume) can be limited t
o 2TB.
Dynamic Disks can well handle the large partition of more than 2TB.
* The number of partitions
Basic Disks, at most can have 4 the primary partition, and usually the bes
t is 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition.
Dynamic Disks, you can create unlimited number of partitions.
* Volumes type
Basic Disks only can create any primary or logical partition.
Dynamic Disks can create simple volume, spanned volume, striped volume, mi
rrored volume and RAID-5 volume.
* Mutual convertibility
 Basic Disks can easily convert to a dynamic disk without any losing-data.
Do not even need to restart the computer during the conversion.
Dynamic Disks convert to a basic disk, which need to delete all volumes on
the dynamic disk, unless use third-party tools such as Dynamic Disk Converter.
* Installation operating system
Basic Disks, any operating system can be installed to a basic disk.
Dynamic Disks, for the moment, all operating system can't be installed to
a dynamic disk.
Similarity
* Supported file systems
Basic Disks and Dynamic Disks all support FAT, FAT32 and NTFS file systems
. May be in individual operating systems, can not directly create a FAT32 dynami
c volume, but after creating a NTFS dynamic volume, you could re-format it as FA
T32.
* Have a partition table
Dynamic Disks have a partition table too, but this partition table is not
the same as one of Basic Disk. Its main function is to let Windows and Other Par
tition Manager can know the disk is a dynamic disk instead of an empty disk.
* Label and Drive Letter
On Basic Disks and Dynamic Disks, you can set label and assign drive lette
r for all volumes or partitions such as "system (C:)".
* Adjust partition size for Vista and later OS
Both Basic Disks and Dynamic Disks, you can extend and shrink the partitio
ns (volumes) size, but don't move its location for any partitions in Vista/2008
and Windows 7.
* Convert file system from FAT to NTFS
If your partitions (volumes) are a FAT file system, you could convert FAT
(FAT32) to NTFS by using "convert C: /FS:NTFS" in command line.
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