What is simple volume? How to create it? Read this post to get answers.

Simple volume is part of the physical disk. It works as an independent unit. Simple volume is a dynamic storage which functions like primary partition in the Windows NT 4.0 or its earlier versions. When there is only one dynamic disk, you can only create simple volume.

Detailed Instructions

There are two cases for creating a simple volume in Windows. If you create a simple volume on a basic disk, you can get a primary partition or a logical partition. Extending this type of volume is relatively complicated.

But if you create a simple volume on a dynamic disk, this volume is relatively flexible. Extending the volume to unallocated space on the same disk can increase the size of the simple volume. In order to reach the goal, one should do formatting with NTFS file system. After extending, the simple volume in the same disk is also a simple volume as before. People can do “Mirror” for it.

Simple volume will also be extended to other dynamic disk on the same computer area. When we extend it to one or more disks, the volume will become a spanned volume. After the extension, people can not delete any part of the spanned volume (unless deleting the whole volume).

Note: Operation systems like MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows XP Home Edition can not support dynamic disk.

Ways to Create a Simple Volume

Here, we take Windows 10 for example.

Step 1: Press “Windows + R” keys to call out Run box, type “diskmgmt.msc“, and press Enter to open Disk Management.

open Disk Management

Step 2: Right-click the unallocated space and click on “New Simple Volume” button. Then the “New Simple Volume Wizard” will emerge, and please follow the on-sreen instructions to determine volume size, assign driver letter, choose file system, allocate unit size, and name volume label.

create simple volume

Step 3: Click “Finish” to create a new simple volume.

Note: Dynamic disk can only support NTFS formatting.

We also recommend reading our guide Create New Volume Using MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Extend a Simple Volume

1. Open Disk Management. Right-click the simple volume you want to extend and click “Extend Volume”.

2. Follow the instructions on the “Extend Volume Wizard”.

We also recommend reading our guide How to Resize Volume with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

  • linkedin
  • reddit