How to extend a simple virtual disk in Server 2012

Today, System Home Xiaobian introduces how to extend a simple virtual disk in Windows Server 2012 R2. You use Server Manager to create a new storage pool called “Storage Pool1”. At the same time, a new simple fixed virtual disk was created using three 10Gb physical disks and utilizing all available disks in Storage Pool1. This brings 24Gb of free space to the system, which we call the E: disk. Now you need to extend this simple fixed virtual disk because it is running out of free space. Logically, you should use Server Manager to add a new physical disk to Storage Pool1 to extend this simple fixed virtual disk. In the screenshot below, I added physical disk 4 to Storage Pool1 and tried to extend this simple fixed virtual disk. Go to Server Manager and select File and Storage Services > Volumes > Storage Pools, right-click Storage Pool1, under Virtual Disks, right-click VDisk1 and select Extend Virtual Disk. A window similar to the screenshot below will be displayed, but all options are grayed out and you can only choose to click Cancel. This will inevitably make you puzzling, want to know what was missed, why did it fail? We have found a solution and explain it to everyone below. When you use Server Manager to create a virtual disk, a key attribute is created called NumberOfColumns. The NumberOfColumns property is set based on the number of physical disks used to create the virtual disk and cannot be changed once the virtual disk is created. You can view the NumberOfColumns property by right-clicking on VDisk1, selecting Properties, selecting the Details tab, and then selecting NumberOfColumns from the Property drop-down menu. As shown in the screenshot above, the attribute value is 3. This is the number of physical disks used to create this simple fixed virtual disk from Storage Pool1. The only way to properly extend a simple fixed virtual disk is to add three more physical disks to Storage Pool1 (NumberOfColumns).