How to split split in Windows 10 or Server 2016

In Disk Management

When we want to split a partition, we basically mean to divide a large partition into two or more partitions, in Disk Management we can use the shrink volume function to split a partition.

Here are the steps of splitting partition in Disk Management, split C Drive for example:

• Open Disk Management and right-click on the partition (C Drive) you want to split and choose Shrink Volume .
• Then Disk Management will spend a while to calculate how much space can be shrank from this drive, time spend on this may vary.
• And then you are prompted to shrink this volume with recommended capacity, you can proceed or type your desired size.
• Then an unallocated space is created after shrank, right-click on it and choose New Simple Volume and follow the new simple volume wizard to create new partition.

Pros

• No need to use any other software
• Performs fast when system runs well
• Will recommend proper size to shrink

Cons

• Shrink Volume function may crush when analyzing
• New Simple Volume will advise to create dynamic disk when there are already four partitions created on the disk.
• Recommended size is not graphic, no clue of what that number means when partition size is large.

Check the solution on `dynamic disk advice when creating new partition`, this error shows even when you split the extended partition on Windows 10, so better try the workout method we tested.

Diskpart command line

Another way of splitting volume is using diskpart, the command line disk managing tool, a default system utility program in Windows.

To split partition with diskpart, we can use the following commands:

// Press Win+R and type diskpart to start this program
- list volume
- select volume (volume number or drive letter, C Drive, ie.)
- shrink  // or - shrink desired 202480 (to shrink 20G) 
- list disk (to see how much free space is created)
- select disk (choose the disk with free space)
- create partition primary size=20480
- select partition 2 (the partition we just created)
- format quick fs=ntfs
- assign

Pros and Cons

Even faster than Disk Management when familiar with commands, but the command `shrink` is also likely to crush when the partition is too large to is less free space left. so you may meet this following message:

Virtual Disk Service Error:
The specified shrink size is too big and will cause the volume to be smaller than the minimum volume size.

Although diskpart can make a list and table for all the drives created and free space left, it's still not vivid enough for beginners.

Split partition with Partition Expert

The alternative of using Disk Management and diskpart.exe tool is to use third-party partition managing software, which is designed to provide better user experience and disk managing, what's more, it avoids all the Cons that you may meet in the default tools.

Download this free program and we'll start with following steps to split partition: (No need to install it, just run it from the portable package)

• In Partition Expert, right-click on the partition you would like to split and choose Resize/Move Volume
• In the resizing window, shrink the volume with the handles on each side and click OK to go back the main interface>
• In the main window, right-click on the unallocated space just created and click Create Volume and click OK to use the default settings.>
• Click Commit and Partition Expert will split this volume for you.>

Pros

1. Graphic design and real-time disk map preview
2. No crush on shrink analyzing even on the large partition
3. Performs faster than Disk Management and diskpart.exe

Cons

1. No Split Volume shortcut

We shall fix all the cons if it annoys many users.

Free download

Summary

All the three solutions can split NTFS partition or FAT32 without losing data, they actually don't delete data but create new partition on unallocated space, which basically has nothing there. So there's no need to worry about exiting data on any partitions when shrink a volume and create a new one.

And methods listed here are worked on Windows 7, 8, and Windows 10, if you're using Windows Server 2008 and above, you'll the notice the differences among the three methods, and we're glad to recommend Partition Expert is the fastest solution.