Resize hard drive partition Windows Server 2012/2016/2019

This article introduces how to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022, 3 ways to resize Windows server partition without losing data.

Content:

Resize hard drive partition with Diskpart cmd
Adjust hard drive size with Disk Management
Resize drive volume with safe partition software

Resize hard drive

1. Resize hard drive partition with Diskpart cmd

When resizing hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012 an other versions, there are Windows inbuilt tools and third party partition editor software. Diskpart is integrated from Windows XP and works via command prompt. Disk Management added "Shrink Volume" and "Extend Volume" functions from Windows 7, it works with graphical interface.

How to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022 with Diskpart:

To shrink partition with Diskpart:

Press Windows and R on the keyboard, type diskpart and press Enter.
Type list volume and press Enter in Diskpart command prompt window, then you'll see all partitions.
Type select volume X and press Enter, X is drive letter or number of the partition that you want to shrink.
Type shrink desired=XX and press Enter. XX is the amount of space to shrink (in MB).

To extend partition with Diskpart:

Type select volume D and press Enter. (D is the letter or number of the adjacent partition on the right)
Type delete volume and press Enter.
Type select volume C and press Enter. (C is the letter or number of the partition that you want to expand)
Type extend and press Enter.

Disadvantages of diskpart to resize Windows server partition:

Only NTFS partition can be shrunk and extended, other types of partitions are not supported.
Unallocated space can only be made on the right after shrinking a partition.
If there are some unmovable files are located, it can only shrink little space.
To extend a partition, there must be adjacent unallocated space on the right.

2. Adjust hard drive size with Disk Management

Diskpart is easy and fast, but it doesn't show disk partition structure or any unallocated space, so there's trouble if you do not know all disk partition structure and other information clearly. Better than Diskpart, the GUI Disk Management tool display all single partitions with detailed parameters on the top, it also shows a disk with partition structure on the bottom. However, Disk Management has the same restrictions with diskpart when resizing disk partitions.

How to resize hard drive partition in Server 2012/2016/2019/2022 with Disk Management:

To shrink a volume:

Press Windows and X on keyboard, then click Disk Management in the list.
Right click a NTFS partition and select "Shrink Volume".
All available space is given by default, click "Shrink" button to execute or enter a smaller amount by yourself.

To extend a volume:

Right click the NTFS partition with adjacent unallocated space on the right, and select "Extend Volume".
Available disk and space is selected by default, click "Next" to continue.
Click "Finish" to confirm and execute.

If there is no required unallocated space, you have to delete the right contiguous partition.

Transfer files before deleting. Do not delete the partition with programs and Windows services.

3. Resize drive volume with partition editor software

Comparing with Windows inbuilt tools, NIUBI Partition Editor is much more powerful, it is able to:

Shrink and extend both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.
Make unallocated space on either side while shrinking a partition.
Shrink a partition to much smaller size, because it can move these unmovable files.
Combine unallocated space to either continuous partition by 1 step.
Move and combine unallocated space to any nonadjacent partitions in the same disk.
Merge, copy, defrag, convert, wipe, hide, scan partition and much more.

Download NIUBI Partition Editor and follow the steps in the video to resize hard drive partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022.

How to extend C: drive by resizing other partitions:

How to extend D: drive by resizing other partitions:

In summary

When there is available free space in a partition, you can shrink it to release unallocated space and then merge to other partition on the same disk. The steps are the same no matter you resize physical partition, hardware RAID or virtual partition in VMware/Hyper-V.
When there's no available free space on a physical disk, you can clone disk to a larger one and extend partition with extra disk space with NIUBI Partition Editor.
When there's no available free space on VMware/Hyper-V virtual disk, expand disk with VMware/Hyper-V own tools. Extra space will be shown as unallocated at the end of original disk. Then follow the steps to move and merge unallocated space to other partitions.

Besides resizing partition in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022 and previous Server 2003/2008, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk/partition management operations.

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