When a partition especially C: drive is getting full, it can't be better if this partition can be extended by moving free space from other partition. Nobody likes to waste a long time to recreate partitions and restore everything from backup. To extend partition in Windows Server 2012 (R2), there are two choices: Windows native tool and third party software. The same with previous version, Server 2012 has two native tools - Diskpart command and Disk Management with GUI. This article introduces how to extend volume in Windows Server 2012 (R2) with these tools.
1. Extend partition with Server 2012 Diskpart command tool
Diskpart is a command prompt tool that is integrated from Windows XP with set of commands. It is able to expand a partition fast and without losing data. However, not all partitions can be extended, the major disadvantages include:
- This partition must be formatted with NTFS file system or without file system (RAW).
- There must be adjacent unallocated space on the right of the partition that you want to expand.
Diskpart has shrink command, but it cannot make required unallocated space to extend other partition. For example, if you shrink D drive with Diskpart, unallocated space is made on the right of D. This space is nonadjacent to C and is on the left of E drive, therefore, it can't be extended to other partition with Diskpart extend command. If you want to extend C drive partition with diskpart command, you must delete the contiguous partition D in advance.
To extend partition in Windows Server 2012 r2 with Diskpart command:
- Press Windows + R on keyboard, type diskpart and press Enter.
- Input list volume and press Enter in diskpart command prompt window, then you'll see all single partitions in a list.
- Input select volume D and press Enter. (D is drive letter or number of the adjacent partition)
- Input delete volume and press Enter.
- Input select volume C and press Enter. (C is drive letter or number of the left contiguous partition, the right contiguous E drive can't be extended with this tool.)
- Input extend and press Enter.
Make sure there are no programs or Windows services installed in D drive, otherwise, do not delete it .
2. Extend partition in Windows Server 2012 with Disk Management
Different with Diskpart that runs via command prompt, Disk Management has graphic interface. You can see all storage devices with partition layout visually. In addition, you'll see detailed information of each partition as well as unallocated space. From Windows Server 2008, advanced "Shrink Volume" and "Extend Volume" functions are added to help resize partition without losing data.
Disk Management is easier to use, but the same with Diskpart command, it cannot extend a partition by shrinking another one. That means, you also need to delete the contiguous volume on the right. Otherwise, Extend Volume is grayed out.
How to extend volume in Server 2012 R2 with Disk Management:
- Back up or transfer files in D: drive (adjacent partition on the right).
- Press Windows + X hotkey and click Disk Management in the list.
- Right click D: drive and select Delete Volume.
- Right click C: drive (adjacent partition on the left) and select Extend Volume.
- Click Next till Finish in the pop-up Extend Volume Wizard window.
If D is a logical drive, you cannot extend C drive even if you delete D in Disk Management.
To server partition software, it doesn't matter the partitions are primary or logical. There's no need to delete any partition.
3. Extend volume in Server 2012 r2 with safe partition software
To extend volume in Windows Server 2012 R2, NIUBI Partition Editor is better choice. Comparing with Windows native tools, it has more advantages.
- It can resize both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.
- It can make unallocated space on either left or right when shrinking partition.
- It can combine unallocated space to either contiguous partition by 1 step.
- It can move and merge unallocated space to non adjacent partition on the same disk.
- It is able to merge two adjacent partitions by 1 step.
- It can clone, convert, defrag, hide, wipe, scan partition and much more.
Better than other disk partition software, it has unique 1-Second Rollback, Virtual Mode, Cancel-at-will and Hot-Clone technologies to protect your system and data. Furthermore, it is 30% to 300% faster because of the advanced file-moving algorithm. These abilities are very important to help resize partition in Windows server.
Download NIUBI Partition Editor and follow the steps in the video to extend partition in Windows Server 2012 (R2).
How to extend partition C by shrinking other volumes:
How to extend partition D by shrinking other volumes:
In this way, Operating System, programs and associated settings, as well as anything else keep the same with before. You won't see any difference except partition size.
If you want to extend RAID 1/5/6/10 partition in Windows 2012 server, do not break array or do any operations to RAID controller, simply follow the steps in the video. If you want to extend Server 2012 virtual partition in VMware/Hyper-V, install NIUBI Partition Editor to the virtual machine and follow the same methods.
Extend volume for Windows 2012 server with another disk
When there's no other partition or no available free space on the same disk, no software can transfer space from a separate disk. Because the size of a physical disk is fixed. A 500GB disk can't be decreased to 300GB or increased to 1TB. In this situation, there are 2 options for you to extend Server 2012 volume with another disk:
- Clone disk to a larger one and extend partition with extra disk space.
- Move a partition to another disk, delete it and add its space to another volume.
Select corresponding method above according to your own disk partition configuration. Besides shrinking and extending partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022/2025 and previous Server 2003/2008, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk partition management operations.
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