| Feature | Basic Disk | Dynamic Disk | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | Partitions (Primary, Extended, Logical) | Volumes (Simple, Spanned, Striped, Mirrored, RAID-5) | | Number of Disks | Single physical disk | Can span multiple physical disks | | Resizing | Shrink/Extend (limited by contiguous space) | Extend easily (non-system volumes) | | Fault Tolerance | ❌ No (except via Storage Spaces or hardware RAID) | ✅ Yes (Mirrored or RAID-5 volumes) | | Performance Boost | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (Striped volumes / RAID-0) | | Portability | ✅ Move to another PC easily | ❌ Difficult (LDM database must move together) | | Dual Boot | ✅ Yes (any OS) | ⚠️ Limited (Only Windows 2000–Windows 10) | | Convertible back | N/A | ⚠️ Destructive (requires full backup & restore) | | Maximum volume size | 2TB (MBR) / 18EB (GPT) | Up to 2TB for boot volume (legacy) / 18EB for others |

It is important to note that Microsoft has effectively placed Dynamic Disks in a state.