How to Extend Volume in Windows Server 2012 R2

Many server administrators need to repartition hard drive and extend system partition after running the server for a period of time, but it is not an easy task if you have no such experience before. Because there's potential system and partition damage risk, you'd better back up first and run safe partition tool for a server. Every Windows version has its native Disk Management tool, but because of many limitations it is not the best tool to help extend volume in Server 2012 R2. In this article, I'll introduce how to extend volume in Windows Server 2012 (R2) with native Disk Management and safest partition software.

About Windows Server 2012 Extend Volume function

The same with previous version, Windows Server 2012 has built-in Extend Volume function in Disk Management. It can be used to expand both system partition and data volumes without losing data. However, it only works under specific condition. To extend volume with Server 2012 Disk Management, your disk partition configuration must meet the requirements:

1. The partition that you want to extend must be formatted with NTFS file system.
2. There is adjacent partition on the right of the drive that you want to extend.
3. You must delete this adjacent partition to get contiguous Unallocated space (for example, delete D to extend C).
4. On MBR disk, the partitions that you want to delete and extend must be the same Primary or Logical partition.

How to extend volume with Server 2012 Disk Management

From the screenshot above, the 20GB Unallocated space can only be extended to left contiguous drive D. If you want to extend C drive with Disk Management, the only option is by deleting D: drive to get adjacent Unallocated space. (Disk Management cannot extend volume with Unallocated space on the left.)

• Do not delete D if you installed programs or any Windows services in it.
• Remember to back up or transfer files before deleting this volume.
• D must be Primary partition, otherwise, Disk Management still cannot extend C drive after deleting D.

Steps to extend volume in Windows Server 2012 R2 with Disk Management:

1. Press Windows + X hotkey together and click Disk Management in the list.
2. Right click the right contiguous partition (such as D:) and select Delete Volume.
3. Right click the left partition that you want to expand (such as C:) and select Extend Volume.
4. Simply click Next till Finish in the pop-up Extend Volume Wizard windows.

If you do not want to delete partition or the partition layout doen't meet the requirements above, server partition software is needed to extend volume in Windows Sever 2012 (R2).

How to extend Server 2012 volume with safe partition software

Comparing with Windows Disk Management, NIUBI Partition Editor has many advantages such as:

• Overcome the restriction of FAT32 partition and Logical/Primary partitions.
• Make Unallocated space on either left or right when shrinking a partition.
• Extend partition by merging either contiguous Unallocated space by 1 step.
• Move Unallocated space and combine to any nonadjacent partition on the same disk.
• Copy to a larger disk if there's no available free space in original disk.
• Much easier, just click drag and drop on the disk map.

Better than other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor has powerful technologies to protect your system and data:

• Virtual mode - avoid incorrect operations by listing all as pending for preview, real disk partitions won't be changed until click Apply to confirm.
• Cancel-at-will - if you applied any incorrect operations, you can cancel the ongoing operations without losing data.
• 1 Second Rollback - if any error is detected while resizing and extending partition, it automatically reverts server to original status in a flash.

Download NIUBI Partition Editor, you'll see all disks with partition structure on the right, available operations to selected disk or partition are listed on the left and by right clicking.

Steps to extend volume in Server 2012 R2 with NIUBI Partition Editor:

① Right click drive D: and select Resize/Move Volume" to shrink it.

② Right click drive C: or E: and run "Resize/Move Volume" again to expand it.

③ Click Apply on top left to confirm and execute.

If you want to extend volume C by shrinking the non adjacent E, there's an additional step to move partition D.

Watch the video how to extend volume in Windows Server 2012 R2:

How to extend RAID 1/5/6/10 partition for Server 2012

It is very common to use hardware RAID arrays for a server, some server use RAID 1 for Operating System, RAID 5 for data storage, some server use RAID 5 for both OS and data.

If there's no available free space on a physical disk or RAID 1, no software can extend a partition by adding free space from another separate disk. In that case, follow the step to clone disk to a larger one and extend partition(s) with additional disk space.

How to extend virtual partition for VM in VMware/Hyper-V

If you run Windows Server 2012 as guest virtual machine in VMware or Hyper-V, there's also no difference to extend volume if you can get Unallocated space on the same virtual disk.

If there's no available free space on a disk, you can expand this disk without copying to a larger one, follow the guide below:

• How to expand virtual disk size in VMware
• How to expand virtual disk size in Hyper-V

After expanding disk, additional disk space will be shown as Unallocated at the end of original disk. Follow the method in the video and combine Unallocated space to other partition(s).

Besides shrinking and extending volume in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022 and previous Server 2003/2008, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk partition management operations.

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