System information

Advanced Functions
5-32
Concatenated striping: A volume formed by concatenating set of striping member volumes.
5.5.6 Windows DiskPart Utility
The Microsoft Diskpart utility is a command line program for managing the disk partitions or volumes on Windows
systems. You can use it for repartitioning drives, deleting partitions, creating partitions, changing drive letters, and
shrinking or expanding volumes by using scripts or direct input from a command prompt. The Diskpart utility is embedded
in Windows Server XP, 2003, and Vista operating system. It can also support Windows 2000, but you need to download it
from Microsoft web site.
For a list of commands that you can use within the Diskpart console you can type help to get some information. For the
help instructions for a particular command you can type the name of the command followed by help, such as select help.
The Diskpart utility can support online expansion of basic and dynamic disks for all Windows operating systems, but
partition shrinking is supported only on Windows Vista. Below are basic examples to illustrate how to do expansion and
shrink by the Diskpart.
• Do extend a partition:
Before expansion, please make sure that there is contiguous free space available next to the partition to be extended on
the same LUN (with no partitions in between). If there is no free space, you can extend the LUN by extending its
corresponded logical disk or volume in the RAID system.
Step1: At a command prompt, type: Diskpart.exe (Launches the utility.)
Step2: At the DISKPART prompt, type: Select Disk 1 (Selects the disk.)
Step3: At the DISKPART prompt, type: Select Volume 1 (Selects the volume.)
Step4: At the DISKPART prompt, type: Extend Size=5000 (If you do not set a size, such as the above example for 5 GB,
it will use all the available space on the current disk to extend the volume.)
When the extend command is done, you should receive a message stating that Diskpart had successfully extended the
volume. The new space should be added to the existing logical drive while maintaining the data.
• Do shrink a partition:
Shrinking a partition can release free space for other partitions on the same LUN. Or, after the partition shrinking is done,
you may shrink the LUN to release free space for other LUNs.
Step1: At a command prompt, type: Diskpart.exe (Launches the utility.)
Step2: At the DISKPART prompt, type: select disk 1 (Selects the disk.)
Step3: At the DISKPART prompt, type: select volume 1 (Selects the volume.)
Step4: At the DISKPART prompt, type: shrink desired=2000 (If you do not set a size, such as the above example for 2
GB, it will shrink the partition by the maximum amount possible. You may use shrink querymax command to know
the maximum space that you can shrink.)
When the shrink command is done, you should receive a message stating that Diskpart had successfully shrunk the
volume. The partition space should be subtractive to the existing drive while maintaining the data on the volume, and
there will be unallocated space created.
Note
For details about the capabilities and limitations of the Diskpart utility, please check Microsoft web
site, and make sure you have a full backup before the operations.
Note
Rebooting the host computers might be needed so as to make it effective.
VU 3:2 (striping)VU 3:1 (striping)
MV 3:1
VOL 3 (concatenating two sets: VU3:1 & VU 3:2)
MV 3:2 MV 3:3 MV 3:4 MV 3:5 MV 3:6 MV 3:7
Figure 5-29 Concatenated striping member volumes