About Dynamic Volume
The volumes which stored on dynamic disk are called dynamic volume. There are five different types of dynamic volumes: Simple volume, Spanned Volume, Striped volume (RAID 0), Mirrored volume (RAID 1) and RAID 5. As same as partition on basic disk, the file system of dynamic volume is also formatted as NTFS or FAT and the NTFS is set as the default. Each volume can be assigned a drive letter.

Dynamic Volume Types and Features

Simple volume

- A simple volume consists of disk space from a single dynamic disk.
- Extend a simple volume to another disk and it becomes a spanned volume.
- Add a mirror to a simple volume and it becomes a mirrored volume.
- Simple volumes are not fault-tolerant.
- Simple volumes do not provide improved disk I/O performance.

Spanned volume

- A spanned volume consists of disk space from two or more dynamic disks and all volume slices do not need to be equally-sized.
- A spanned volume can be extended as long as unallocated space exists in dynamic disks.
- A spanned volume cannot be mirrored.
- Spanned volumes are not fault-tolerant.
- Spanned volumes do not provide improved disk I/O performance.

Striped volume (RAID0)

- A striped volume resides on two or more dynamic disks and its data is evenly distributed across equally-sized of disk space on each disk.
- Striped volumes usually provide the ability to access data faster than other types of dynamic volumes.
- Striped volumes cannot be mirrored or extended and are not fault-tolerant.
- A striped volume is also known as a RAID 0 volume.

Mirrored volume (RAID1)

- A mirrored volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is duplicated on two dynamic disks.
- Mirrored volumes provide data redundancy. When one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk.
- Mirrored volumes cannot be extended and do not provide improved disk I/O performance.
- A mirrored volume is also known as RAID 1 volume.

Raid-5 Volume

- A RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant volume. Its data and parity are striped across an array of three or more dynamic disks.
- Parity is a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data after a failure.
- When a dynamic disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity.
- RAID-5 volumes cannot be mirrored or extended but provide improved disk I/O performance and enhanced data reliability.
- A RAID-5 volume only exists on computers running Windows Server Operating Systems.

Compare with Three Different Software Raid Array

Volume Name | Striped Volume | Mirrored Volume | RAID-5 Volume
Tech Name | RAID0 | RAID1 | RAID5
Fault Tolerance | Not support | Support | Support
Improving I/O Performance | Not support | Not support | Support
Disk Requirement | At least two disks | Only two disks | At least three disks
Active Volume | The whole disk volume | 50% of whole disk volume | (disk number-1) * a single disk volume
Volume Name | Striped Volume | Mirrored Volume | RAID-5 Volume

Dynamic Volume Types Support

Note: The table below lists the operating systems that support certain dynamic volume types.

| Simple Volume | Spanned Volume | Striped Volume | Mirrored Volume | RAID5 Volume
Dos and Windows 9X |  |  |  |  |
Windows 2000 Professional |  |  |  |  |
Windows 2000 Server/Advanced Server/Datacenter Server |  |  |  |  |
Windows XP Home |  |  |  |  |
Windows XP Professional |  |  |  |  |
Windows 2003 Small Business Server/Web/Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter Edition |  |  |  |  |
Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium |  |  |  |  |
Windows Vista Business/Ultimate/Enterprise |  |  |  |  |
Windows Server 2008 R2/Datacenter/Enterprise/Standard |  |  |  |  |
Windows 7 Home Premium/Home Basic/Starter |  |  |  |  |
Windows 7 Professional/Unlimited/ Enterprise |  |  |  |  |