How to merge or resize local drives

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Optimize your disk space to work with files on your computer even easier.

All instructions are suitable for both traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD).

Recall: a physical disk is displayed in the system as virtual volumes, they are also called local disks or partitions.

How to change disk partitions in Windows

By regular means

In Windows, you can merge drives without third-party software, but this method has an important drawback. You will lose all data on one of the merged partitions. Therefore, important files must first be moved from it to another partition or to a third-party media.

The process of merging local drives is a two-step process. First, you completely delete one of them along with all the contents, then give the space thus freed up to the second disk.

You will need the standard Disk Management utility. To start it, use the Windows + R key combination, enter the diskmgmt.msc command in the window that appears and click OK. The hard disk partitions will be displayed at the bottom of the Disk Management window.

After launching the utility, right-click on the drive you are about to erase (for example, the conventional drive D) and select "Delete Volume". This cannot be done with the system volume on which Windows is installed, since the procedure destroys all files stored in the partition.

Now right-click on the adjacent partition (conventional drive C) to which you want to transfer the freed space and select "Expand Volume".

When the Volume Expansion Wizard opens, click Next twice. As a result, the selected partition (in our example - C) will receive the entire volume of the deleted one.

Using third-party programs

There is free third-party software that makes managing local drives a lot easier. For example, MiniTool Partition Wizard not only allows you to quickly merge volumes, but also easily resize them. At the same time, it saves all data. But if you have important files on your computer, back them up anyway - just in case.

So, to merge disks using MiniTool Partition Wizard, start the program and click on the volume (let it be C) to which you want to attach another partition (conditional D). Select the Merge option from the context menu.

In the window that opens, click on the same section (C) and click Next.

Now click on the section (D) that you are going to attach to the one already selected. A field with the name of the folder will appear in the lower half of the window: merged_partition_content. The program will create it on the target partition and copy all files from the remote there. Rename this folder if you like. Click Finish.

Click Apply in the left corner of the toolbar for the changes to take effect. If the program asks to restart your computer, click OK and wait for Windows to restart. As a result, the explorer will display a disk equal in size to the two combined partitions.

If your goal is not to concatenate disks, but only to increase the size of one of them (say, D) at the expense of the other (let it be C), this can be done in two simple steps. First, you need to reduce one section, and then transfer the vacated space to the second.

To reduce the size of a disk (C), select it in the main menu of the MiniTool Partition Wizard and in the left pane click on the Move / Resize Partition button. In the window that appears, move the slider so that the number next to the Unallocated Space After parameter corresponds to the volume by which you want to reduce the selected section. Confirm the change.

Next, select the disk you want to enlarge in the main menu (D). Use the Move / Resize Partition button again and expand the volume using the slider.

Click Apply on the top panel and wait for the program to redistribute the entire volume. This may require a reboot.

MiniTool Partition Wizard →

How to change disk partitions in macOS

If you have a Mac, you need the preinstalled Disk Utility program to manage your drive volumes. It's in the Finder menu → Applications → Utilities. Be sure to back up important files before manipulating discs.

After launching "Disk Utility", on the left pane, select the hard disk, the partitions of which you want to edit, and click on the "Partition into partitions" button.

A window will appear on the screen in which you can merge the selected volumes or resize them. The interface of the utility is very intuitive: the hard disk is displayed in the form of a pie chart, and its partitions - in the form of sectors.

To merge sections, you need to delete one of them first. To do this, select it and click on the minus below the diagram. Remember that all his data will be erased. After that, when an empty sector appears in place of the deleted partition, expand any adjacent volume by dragging the cursor over its border. And to redistribute the sizes of the volumes, just move the boundaries of the corresponding sectors.

When you have made all the necessary settings, click "Apply" and wait for the changes to take effect.