Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Configuring Storage

When you install disks, you must configure them for use by choosing a partition style and a storage type to use. After you configure drives, you prepare them to store data by partitioning them and creating file systems in the partitions. Partitions are sections of physical drives that function as if they are separate units. This allows you to configure multiple logical disk units even if a system has only one physical drive and to apportion disks appropriately to meet the needs of your organization.

Using the Disk Management Tools

When you want to manage storage, the primary tool you use is Disk Management. Disk Management is a snap-in included in Computer Management and Server Manager. It can be added to any custom MMC you create as well. As long as you are a member of the Administrators group, you can use Disk Management to configure drives and software RAID.

Disk Management makes it easy to work with any available internal and external drives on both local and remote systems. You can start Disk Management by clicking Start, pointing to All Programs, selecting Administrative Tools, and then Computer Management. You're automatically connected to the local computer on which you're running Computer Management. In Computer Management, expand Storage, and then select Disk Management. You can now manage the drives on the local system.

To use Disk Management to work with a remote system, right-click the Computer Management entry in the left pane, and select Connect To Another Computer on the shortcut menu. This displays the Select Computer dialog box. Type the domain name or IP address of the system whose drives you want to view, and then click OK.

Disk Management has three views:

• Disk List: Shows a list of physical disks on or attached to the selected system with details on type, capacity, unallocated space, and status. It is the only disk view that shows the device type, such as Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) or Integrated Device Electronics (IDE), and the partition style, such as master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT).
• Graphical View: Displays summary information for disks graphically according to disk capacity and the size of disk regions. By default, disk and disk region capacity are shown on a logarithmic scale, meaning the disks and disk regions are displayed proportionally.
  Change the Scaling Options to Get Different Disk Views
  You can also specify that you want all disks to be the same size regardless of capacity (which is useful if you have many disk regions on disks) or that you want to use a linear scale in which disk regions are sized relative to the largest disk (which is useful if you want to get perspective on capacity). To change the size settings for the Graphical View, click View, Settings, and then in the Settings dialog box, select the Scaling tab.
• Volume List: Shows all volumes on the selected computer (including hard disk partitions and logical drives) with details on volume layout, type, file system, status, capacity, and free space. It also shows whether the volume has fault tolerance and the related disk usage overhead. The fault tolerance information is for software RAID only.

Volume List and Graphical View are the default views. The Volume List view is in the upper-right corner, and the Graphical View is in the lower-right corner. To change the top view, select View, choose Top, and then select the view you want to use. To change the bottom view, select View, choose Bottom, and then select the view you want to use.

Disk Management's command-line counterpart is the DiskPart utility. You can use Disk- Part to perform all Disk Management tasks. DiskPart is a text-mode command interpreter that you invoke so that you can manage disks, partitions, and volumes. As such, DiskPart has a separate command prompt and its own internal commands. Although earlier releases of DiskPart did not allow you to format partitions, logical drives, and volumes, the version that ships with Windows Server 2008 allows you to do this using the internal format command.

You invoke the DiskPart interpreter by typing diskpart at the command prompt. Disk- Part is designed to work with physical hard disks installed on a computer, which can be internal, external, or a mix of both. Although it will list other types of disks, such as CD/DVD drives, removable media, and universal serial bus (USB)-connected fl ash random access memory (RAM) devices, and allow you to perform some minimal tasks, such as assigning a drive letter, these devices are not supported.

After you invoke DiskPart, you can list available disks, partitions, and volumes by using the following list commands:

• List Disk: Lists all internal and external hard disks on the computer
• List Volume: Lists all volumes on the computer (including hard disk partitions and logical drives)
• List Partition: Lists partitions, but only on the disk you've selected

Then you must give focus to the disk, partition, or volume you want to work with by selecting it. Giving a disk, partition, or volume focus ensures that any commands you type will act only on that disk, partition, or volume. To select a disk, type select disk N, where N is the number of the disk you want to work with. To select a volume, type select volume N, where N is the number of the volume you want to work with. To select a partition, first select its related disk by typing select disk N, and then select the partition you want to work with by typing select partition N.

If you use the list commands again after selecting a disk, partition, or volume, you'll see an asterisk (*) next to the item with focus. When you are finished working with Disk- Part, type exit at the DiskPart prompt to return to the standard command line.

Listing-1 shows a sample DiskPart session. As you can see, when you first invoke DiskPart, it shows the operating system and DiskPart version you are using as well as the name of the computer you are working with. When you list available disks, the output shows you the disk number, status, size, and free space. It also shows the disk partition style and type. If there's an asterisk in the Dyn column, the disk is a dynamic disk. Otherwise, it is a basic disk. If there's an asterisk in the Gpt column, the disk uses the GPT partition style. Otherwise, it is an MBR disk.

Listing 14-1 Using DiskPart: an example

C:\> diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: CORPSVR02

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ###   Status      Size     Free  Dyn Gpt
--------   ----------  ------- ------ --- ---
Disk 0    Online      56 GB    0 B   *   *
Disk 1    Online      29 GB    0 B
Disk 2    Online      37 GB    9 GB

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr  Label       Fs    Type      Size    Status   Info
---------- ---  ---------  -----  -------   ------- ------   ------
Volume 0    F  		    DVD-ROM   0 B
Volume 1    G   W2PFPP_EN  CDFS   CD-ROM    361 MB
Volume 2    C   Apps       NTFS   Partition 56 GB   Healthy  System
Volume 3    D   Data       NTFS   Partition 29 GB   Healthy
Volume 4    N   Data2      NTFS   Partition 28 GB   Healthy
Volume 5    S                     Partition 47 MB   Healthy

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ###   Type 	    Size      Offset
-------------   -------------- ------  -  -------
Partition 1     Primary        56 GB      32 KB

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ###   Type          Size        Offset
-------------   ------------- -------  -  ------
* Partition 1   Primary       56 GB       32 KB

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

C:\>