It is a headache for many Server administrator to select a partition software for Server 2008, so in this article, I want to give you some hints about how to select the right Server 2008 partition software.
How to select a partition software for Server 2008
Of course, different people have different choice, but generally speaking, you should consider the factors below.
Data Security
Data security is the most aspect you should pay attention. Different with the software that just read info from hard disk, partitioning software will change original disk partition parameters, so you should select the one with data protection, no one would like to see data loss or boot failure after resizing.
Features
With very nearly the same price, why not select the one with more features, so with one partition software, you can better manage your Server disk partitions.
Price
With similar features, why not select the cheaper one?
In conclusion, learn more details about the Server 2008 partition software and download the trail to check. The one recommended by others is for reference only, select the one that fit for your needs.
Server 2008 partition software list
Diskpart command line
Diskpart is free command line built in Windows, many people have heard about or recommended by others. To me, I won't suggest it, as it has many limitations such as,
- The partition you want to extend must be formatted as NTFS
- The unallocated space for extension must be behind the partition you want to extend on the same disk.
- Only DATA partition can be extended.
- You cannot extend the partition if system page file is located.
- Comparing with GUI software, command line is too hard to use, impossible to rollback and may leads to data loss.
Server 2008 partition software - Disk Management tool
To open Disk Management console, right-click 'My Computer' > 'Manage' > 'Storage' > 'Disk Management'.
Actually, Server 2008 Disk Management is just graphical user interface of Diskpart command line, so the limitations are the same with Diskpart. You cannot extend drive C: by shrinking drive D.
Server 2008 partition software - Partition Magic Server
Partition Magic Server is an all-in-one Server partition management toolkit for Windows Server 2008/2003/2000 and Small Business Server 2011/2008/2003 both 32 and 64 bit. It helps you resize partition, extend, shrink, split and merge partitions without losing data.
It is not only safe with built-in Enhanced Data Protection technology, but also integrated Disk/Partition Copy to keep your data intact, furthermore, if the system partition is NTFS, you can extend it without rebooting.
Server 2008 partition software - Acronis Disk Director Server
Acronis Disk Director has long history to support Windows Operating System and File System. It provides partition manager, partition recovery and disk edit features, GPT, MBR and dynamic disks are supported, but the price is too much expensive - $609, even Partition Assistant Unlimited edition (allows unlimited installation within one organization) plus free lifetime upgrade only costs $ 489. However, it's your choice.
Server 2008 partition software resources
- How to resize Server 2008 partition?
- How to extend C drive on Windows 2008 Server?
- How to merge partitions in Server 2008?
- How to fix Windows 2008 low disk space problem?
- Partition manager for Server 2008
- Partition Magic Windows 2008 Server R2