When C: drive is getting full in Windows 2019 server, you can increase C drive space without recreating partitions and restoring everything from backup. Nobody likes to do such time-consuming and boring task. Disk partitions can be resized without losing data. To extend C drive in Windows Server 2019, you may try its native tool if you can delete the adjacent partition. The best way is running safe partition software to keep everything intact. This article introduces how to extend C drive in Server 2019 with Windows inbuilt too and safe partition software.
Increase C drive space in Server 2019 with native tool
Windows Server 2019 native Disk Management utility has Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions to help change partition size. However, this native tool cannot extend C drive by shrinking any other partition. Because "Extend Volume" only works when there's contiguous unallocated space on the right. After shrinking D or other partition, unallocated space is always nonadjacent to C drive, so Extend Volume option is greyed out.
If you want to extend C drive in Windows Server 2019 without any software, you must delete the adjacent partition D (or E). In addition, this adjacent partition must be primary. With safe partition software, you can make unallocated space on the left when shrinking partition, then C drive can be extended easily without deleting other partition.
How to extend C: drive in Server 2019 with Disk Management:
- Move all files in the contiguous partition D: (E in some servers) to other place.
- Press Windows + X on your keyboard and click Disk Management in the list.
- Right click D: drive and select Delete Volume, then its disk space will be converted to "unallocated".
- Right click C: drive and select Extend Volume, click Next till Finish in next windows.
Tips when extending C drive in Server 2019 via Disk Management:
- Unallocated space that deleted from a partition must be next to C drive.
- If the contiguous partition D is logical, its disk space will be changed to "Free" instead of "unallocated". In that case, the method above is invalid.
- It is not 100% safe. Pay more attention when there are both primary and logical partitions on a disk.
When resizing disk partitions, all parameters of associated disk, partition and files must be modified correctly. Some software error and hardware issue such as power failure could cause part of the parameters failed to be modified. If it happens, system and/or data will be damaged. So make an image backup or clone disk partition in advance and run safe partitioning software.
Better than other disk partition tools, NIUBI Partition Editor is much safer and faster because of the advanced technologies:
- Virtual Mode - all operations will be listed as pending for preview, real disk partitions won't be modified until you click "Apply" to confirm.
- Cancel-at-will - if you applied wrong operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations without damaging partitions.
- 1 Second Rollback - if it detects known error while resizing partitions, it automatically reverts server to original status in a flash.
- Hot Clone - clone disk/partition without rebooting. So you can clone system disk regularly as backup and boot from the clone disk immediately if system disk is down.
- With the help of its advanced file-moving algorithm, it is 30% to 300% faster to shrink, move and copy partition.
Extend C drive in Windows 2019 server with safe partition software
In most of servers, there's free space in other partition on the same disk. You can shrink this partition, then part of free space will be changed to unallocated. Finally add this unallocated space to C drive, then there will be more free space in C drive again. In this way, Operating System, programs and anything else keep the same with before. To accomplish this task, you just need to drag and drop on the disk map.
Download NIUBI Partition Editor and you'll see the main window with disk partition structure and other information. Available operations are listed on the left and by right clicking. Unavailable operations are hidden automatically to keep the interface clean.
To extend C drive in Windows Server 2019 without losing data:
- Right click the contiguous partition D (or E in some servers) and select "Resize/Move Volume". In the pop-up window, drag left border towards right or enter an amount in the box of Unallocated space before. Then drive D will be shrunk and unallocated space will be made on the left of it.
- Right click C: drive and select "Resize/Move Volume" again, drag right border towards right to merge this unallocated space, then C drive will be extended.
- Click Apply on top left to execute, done.
Watch the video how to enlarge C: drive in Server 2019:
- If your right contiguous partition is E, simply replace D with E in the steps above.
- If you want to shrink non adjacent partition, there's an additional step to move unallocated space to the left before adding to C drive. (Method is shown in the video above).
- NIUBI is designed to work in virtual mode first, real disk partitions won't be changed until click Apply to confirm. If you did anything wrong, simply click Undo to cancel.
- The pending operations that are marked as
can be done in Windows, the ones that are marked as 
requires rebooting to accomplish. - If C drive is on a RAID array, there's no difference to resize/extend RAID partition in Windows Server 2019. Don't break array or do any operations to RAID controller.
How to extend C drive partition with another disk
The size of a physical disk is fixed. You can change partition size but you cannot resize a disk. If there's only C drive or if all partitions on the system disk are almost full, no software can expand C drive by moving free space from another separate disk. If there's only C drive on the system disk, you can clone disk to a larger one and extend partition with extra disk space. Follow the steps in the video to increase C drive space in Windows Server 2019 with a larger disk:
If there are other partition but no available free space on the system disk, another method is moving a partition to other disk. Then delete this partition and add its space to C drive. Learn how to move partition in Server 2019.
Expand C drive in Server 2019 running in VMware/Hyper-V/Virtualbox
If you want to extend C drive in Server 2019 running as VMware/Hyper-V/Virtualbox guest machine, there's no difference when there's available free space on the same virtual disk. You just need to install NIUBI Partition Editor to the virtual machine and follow the steps in the first video above.
If the virtual system disk is almost full, you can expand it with VMware or Hyper-V. After expanding disk, additional space is shown as unallocated at the end.
- How to expand virtual disk size in VMware
- How to expand virtual disk size in Hyper-V
- How to move and add unallocated space to C drive
In Summary
To extend C drive in Windows Server 2019, firstly check your disk partition structure and configuration, then follow the corresponding method above. NIUBI Partition Editor can help you accomplish this task fast and safely. Besides shrinking and extending partition in Server 2019/2022 and previous Server 2003/2008/2012/2016, it helps do many other disk and partition management operations.
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