Are dynamic disks faster?

[gaviota]

What are the advantages of dynamic disks in Windows XP Professional? Will my disks be faster if I turn them to dynamic? Or will they be faster with normal (non-dynamic) NTFS?



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[delpart]

It has nothing to do with access time. This has to do with how you can partition or make volumes across several physical disks. This usually involves using a motherboard with a RAID (redundant array of independant disks) controller.

en Xristos

 

[delpart]

Although it has nothing to do with access time as far as the definition of dynamic disks, it does have to do with speed once you set up a RAID controller and distribute your data across several disks (RAID 0). The downside of this is that RAID 0 is not fault tolerant. If one disk fails ALL the data is wiped out of ALL the physical disks. Only RAID 5 is widely used, but the controller and motherboards are quite pricey.

en Xristos

 

[Toejam31]

You'll get the best performance by using striped volumes, but there are certain <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;254105" target="_new">limitations</A>.

<A HREF="http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/diskmgmt/dynamic_disk.htm" target="_new">Dynamic Disks in Windows 2000</A>

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/proddocs/server/dm_dynamic_overview.asp" target="_new">Dynamic disks and volumes</A>

<A HREF="http://www.petri.co.il/basic_vs_dynamic_disks.htm" target="_new">What's the difference between Basic and Dynamic Disks in Windows XP/2000?</A>

<A HREF="http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/howto-20.htm" target="_new">Basic Storage Versus Dynamic Storage in Windows XP</A>

I'd suggest that you have an excellent back up strategy in place before converting the disks and striping them. You should never rely on Windows for fault-tolerance.

Toey

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[gaviota]

Thanks for your replies. I'm not interested in setting a RAID array, I just wanted to know if individual disks would get better performance if they get converted to dynamic.

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[jihiggs]

no

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