Windows Dynamics vs Basic Disk

[crescendas]

vmware has always recommended basic disk over dynamics disk in the past. Is dynamics disk unsupported and is still not recommended by vmware today? If not, what are the pros and cons of basic vs dynamics disks?

[firestartah]

look at this thread

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/88747

if i remember rightly this was due to dynamic disks using a proprietary Microsoft format for recording partition information and it was not publicly documented. So they recommended against it but i've used dynamic disks loads of times but obviously the management is thr real problem as stated in that thread

If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".

Gregg Robertson, VCP3,4 , MCSE, MCSA, MCTS, MCITP

[AWo]

You can use dynamic disks with VMware, but IMHO they have drawbacks. Many tools which you can use for partition management don't work with dynamic disks.

What do you try to achieve with a dynamic disk what you can't do with a virtual basic disk disk under VMware?

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[apple20121314]

Why not try to know more useful information about dynamic disk and basic disk and how to convert dynamic disk to basic disk. I just faced the same boring problem as you before, but now I have understood something about windows dynamic disk and basic disk.

[firestartah]

If you found these or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".

[crescendas]

Hi AWo, this is because dynamics disk can be extended easier and faster as compared with Basic disk.

Hi Fire, I have marked your reply as helpful as well.

[AndreTheGiant]

Basic disks are more simple, and probably have less overhead in guest OS.

Dynamic disks could have several problems, if you loose a part of one disks.

The only user cases that I can see, are:

• you need a volume bigger than 2TB (use a stripe of more dynamic disks)

• you want to implement a "simple DR" solution and make a guest mirror between two disks on different datastores on different storages.

• you want to extend a volume with another volume (because you cannot increase the vmdk, for example because there isn't free space)

But IMHO the best solution is avoid dynamic disks at all.

Andre