Comparing with system partition C, D: drive is less likely running out of space, but many people still encountered this issue. In that case, of course it can't be better if you can increase D drive free space without wasting a long time to start over. With safe partition software, you can shrink C or other partition to extend D without losing data. This article introduces how to extend D: drive on Windows Server 2016/2019/2022/2025.
How to extend D: drive by shrinking C or E (on same disk)
Besides some small system reserved partitions, there are C drive and D on the same disk in most of servers. Some servers have C drive on system disk, D and some other partitions are on another data disk. No matter drive D is on system or data disk, as long as there's other partition with plenty of free space on the same disk, you can shrink it to expand D drive easily.
Before extending partition D in Windows server, you'd better back up and run safe partitioning software, because there's potential system damage and data loss risk with some unreliable software.
Better than other software, NIUBI Partition Editor has innovative technologies to protect system and data.
- Virtual Mode - all operations will be listed as pending for preview, real disk partitions won't be modified until click Apply to confirm.
- Cancel-at-will - if you applied incorrect operations, it doesn't matter, you can cancel the ongoing operations without causing damage.
- 1-Second Rollback - if any error is detected while resizing partition, it automatically reverts server to original status in a flash.
- Hot Clone - clone disk partition without server interruption, you can clone disk before any operations or as regular backup.
- It is 30% to 300% faster because of the advanced file-moving algorithm.
To extend D drive on Windows Server 2016/2019/2022/2025:
- Download NIUBI Partition Editor, right click either contiguous volume C or E and select "Resize/Move Volume".
- In the pop-up window, drag one border towards the other one to shrink this partition. If you want to shrink C: drive, make unallocated space on the right side.
- Right click D: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume" again, drag the border opposite the other one to combine unallocated space.
- Click Apply on top left to execute. (Any operations before this step only work in virtual mode.)
Watch the video how to expand D drive by shrinking other volumes.
How to extend partition D with another disk
In some servers, there's not enough free space in other partition on the same disk. In that case, you have two options.
- If both C and D drive are almost full, you may copy entire system disk to another larger disk.
- If you don't want to copy system C drive to other disk, you may copy single partition D to another disk.
No matter copying entire disk or single partition, you can extend D: drive for Server 2016 with extra disk space. If there's no unallocated space on the other disk, you can shrink a partition to get. Unallocated space should be larger than the used space of D drive.
How to extend D drive by copying entire system disk:
How to extend partition D with another disk:
How to extend volume D in RAID/VMware/Hyper-V
In most servers, there's available free space in other volume on the same disk, no matter this disk is in physical server or virtual server in VMware/Hyper-V. In that case, simply follow the steps in the first video above, there's no difference. To any types of hardware RAID arrays, such as RAID 0/1/5/10, do NOT break array or do any operations to raid controller.
In VMware and Hyper-V virtual machine, if there's no available free space in a disk, you can expand this virtual disk directly. Then additional space will be shown as unallocated at the end of original virtual disk. Finally follow the steps to merge unallocated space to D drive (and other partitions).
In Summary
To extend D drive in Windows Server 2016/2019/2022/2025, back up first and run safe partitio software. Because of the powerful data protection technologies and fast file-moving algorithm, NIUBI Partition Editor is the best choice. Besides shrinking and extending partitions, it help you do many other disk partition management operations.
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