Pros:
- "infinite space" - you can add and add and add more drives onto a single Dynamic disk until the cows all DIE! (I.e. You can "add" onto a single disk-spanning partition, or add more partitions, etc.)
- It's the ONLY WAY to mix SATA and PATA drives into an "array."
- You can swap in/out (hot? I've never tried it actually!?) drives essentially adding in/out "more disk" w/o doing the HDD/partition dance."
- They can be RAID-enabled.
Cons:
- If one disk drive dies, you're screwed, completely! (Essentially IRRECOVERABLE, unless you RAID mirrored....)
- Dynamic "disks" are NOT compatible with ANY OTHER FORMAT, so you can't physically move any partitian of a Dynamic disk anywhere else, other than where it lives.
- You can make a partition large enough that some SW won't handle it correctly!
- Um, unless you have ANOTHER DD array around, backups are IMPOSSIBLE! (Okay, not literally, but they're just darned useless!)
Summary: In the end, I'd suggest that you use DDs ONLY for "transient data" or temporary storage.
E.g. I have a DD (w/o any RAID) across two *REMOVABLE* 320GB SATA HDDs onto which my recorded TeeVee shows go....
I can record virtually non-stop, but if a/the drive dies, the worst thing I've done is lost some shows that I probably wouldn't have watched anyway!
