What does "shrinkage" mean? How can I shrink something safely?

The digital era has sparked global competition in data storage, with major corporations relying on efficient storage solutions and many users depending on optimized usage of existing storage capacities. For Windows 10/11 users, an excellent "Disk Management" tool ensures they have no worries about storage optimization. This utility offers comprehensive management of advanced storage tasks. Do you know what the Shrink Volume feature does?

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"Shrink Volume" in the "Disk Management" tool is a reliable option. It reduces the size of a partition, creating unallocated space on the disk. In this article, we'll delve into how to shrink a volume in detail. After reading this, you'll be able to safely shrink volumes using different methods on your Windows 10/11 system. If you're wondering what shrinking a volume means in Disk Management, you can learn about shrinking the C drive by clicking the link.

How to Fix Unable to Shrink C Drive in Windows 11/10/8/7

In this article, you'll learn the reasons why Windows can't shrink C drive and 4 effective solutions based on these reasons.

In Disk Management, what does the "Compress Volume" feature do?

The first step to understanding the shrink-wrap process and its detailed steps is to get a quick overview of its details.

Firstly, what is the "Shrink Volume" feature in disk management? Shrink Volume is a dedicated function in Disk Management. When activated on a Windows 10/11 system, it automatically repositions regular files within the partition to reduce the partition's space.

Naturally, the next question on your mind would be when is the right time to shrink the volume. It's crucial to understand the primary reasons for choosing to shrink a volume in Windows 10/11. These reasons include:

• Create a new volume to store important files using the unallocated space
• Set SD over-provisioning using the unallocated space
• Extend the size of an adjacent volume via Disk Management

The "Shrink Volume" feature can be found in the Disk Management tool. This is a dedicated Windows utility for advanced storage tasks, allowing you to shrink a basic volume, extend a basic volume, change drive letters, initialize new drives, and more.

Before proceeding with the "Compress Volume" operation in Windows 10/11, there are a few key points to consider:

• You can shrink a physical disk or a partition formatted with the NTFS file system.
• Block-level copying is not recommended for data transfer because it copies bad sectors to the new disk.
• You must identify immovable files, as some files cannot be automatically relocated during volume shrink. Event 259 in the event log can help identify immovable files.
• There's no need to reformat the disk when shrinking a partition.

If you encounter the problem of Windows unable to shrink volume, the reader can easily refer to this link: here.

How long does downsizing take?

After getting familiar with shrinking volumes, you might wonder how long it takes to shrink a volume on a Windows 10 or 11 device.

Key factors affecting the time it takes to complete this overall contraction include:

• The size of the partition is reduced
• Free space is released

Shrinking a volume takes longer as the size of the partition increases. This is due to the increased amount of data and corresponding space allocation. Thus, shrinking a volume will be faster when reducing the partition's size.

As for how long it takes to free up the space, that can vary depending on the amount of compression the volume needs. For smaller amounts of freed-up space, this completes quickly, but for larger amounts, you might need to wait a few minutes.

Thus, the average time for a shrink wrap to complete could be anywhere between 15-20 minutes to 1-2 hours. It is advised to prevent system shutdowns or hard resets during this process.

How to Safely Shrink a Volume in Windows 10/11 - Three Methods

Now that we've covered the time it takes to shrink a volume, let's explore how to go about doing it. Here, we'll look at three different methods to shrink a volume on a Windows 10 or 11 device. They include:

• Method 1: Shrink Volume with tools Partition Master
• Method 2: Shrink Volume with Disk Management
• Method 3: Shrink Volume with Diskpart

Before delving into the details of these methods, we can easily compare them at a high level based on their different trade-offs. So here is a quick comparison table:

Method 1: Shrink the Volume via Partition Master

When looking for a secure, quick, and straightforward way to shrink a volume in Windows 10/11, tools Partition Master is the perfect solution. It offers simple steps to shrink volumes on Windows devices. Users of Windows 10/11 can easily download tools Partition Master quickly from its official website.

AOMEI Partition Assistant is the best disk management tool that offers quick disk space adjustment, creation of new partitions, and partition merging. It is not only compatible with Windows 10/11 but also supports operating systems like Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.

Main Features of tools Partition Master:

Some of the key features that make tools Partition Master a comprehensive partition manager include:

1. It allows for quick resizing of encrypted partitions. 2. It enables you to create partitions on USB drives. 3. Its intelligent Windows 11 Upgrade Assistant provides extra performance benefits to Windows 11 users. 4. It boasts additional disk management features, such as converting from MBR to GPT, formatting partitions, merging partitions, and more.

tools Partition Master is a professional partition management software that caters to both beginners and pros, allowing you to shrink or expand Windows 10/11 partitions without data loss. The beauty of this tool lies in its simple solution to the "how to shrink a volume" dilemma, which is convenient for users exploring different approaches.

You can shrink the volume using Partition Master in these steps:

Step 1: Locate and select the partition that you want to shrink.

In the Partition Manager section, right-click on the partition you want to shrink and select “Resize/Move”.

Step 2: Adjust to shrink the partition

Shrink the partition by dragging the end of it with your mouse.

You can also adjust the size sliders to shrink the target partition. Click “OK” when you're done.

Third step: Perform the action.

Click the Run Task button and choose Apply to save all your changes.

Method 2: Shrink the Volume through Disk Management

The next approach is to shrink the volume via Disk Management, a dedicated Windows utility that offers various storage tasks. Users can easily initialize a new drive, extend a basic volume, shrink a basic volume, and change drive letters with Disk Management. Dedicated disk management troubleshooting tools are available for both beginners and professionals.

The quick steps to shrink a volume using Disk Management are:

Step 1: Access the "Disk Management" option in Windows 10/11.

Step 2. In the Disk Management menu, select the “Compress volume” option.

Step 3: Wait for Disk Management to query the available space for shrinking.

Step 4: A pop-up will appear. Enter the dimensions that you want to resize the image to here.

Step 5. Click the “Compress” button and let Disk Management complete the process of shrinking the volume.

Method 3: Shrink the Volume via Diskpart

Last but not least, there's the way of shrinking it via Diskpart commands. It's a dedicated command interpreter that helps manage different computer drives. Diskpart can manage virtual hard disks, volumes, partitions, disks, and so on. Listing objects, selecting the object and focusing on it, and giving a specific Diskpart command is all it takes to use Diskpart.

The steps to shrink a volume using Diskpart are as follows:

Step 1: Press "Windows + R" keys to open the Run window.

Step 2: Type “diskpart” in the Run window, and press “Enter”.

Step 3: Type the following commands, pressing the "Enter" key after each one.

"List volume"

Select Volume # (replace # with the volume number)

Shrinkage needed = * (where * represents the amount of shrinkage needed)

Step 4: Once the shrink process is complete, you'll see a message that says "DiskPart successfully shrank the volume:..."

5. Type “Exit” and press “Enter” to close DiskPart.

Conclusions

It is hoped that readers now have a clear understanding of the purpose of shrinking volumes and how to safely shrink them on their devices. The details in Disk Management make it easy to understand the safety of shrinking a volume. Shrinking or expanding a volume does not affect system data. Additionally, the time it takes to shrink a volume largely depends on the amount of space required.

With the detailed explanation above, users can easily grasp the three methods to safely shrink volume in Windows 10/11. The step-by-step instructions for using Diskpart and Disk Management make it comprehensible for both beginners and professionals. When users seek a safe, quick, and reliable volume shrinking operation on their devices, tools Partition Master remains the optimal choice.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the "Reduce Size" Feature

After reading the detailed discussion of minification in this section, you might have some questions. Here's a quick list of some common and frequently asked questions about it:

1. Safely shrink a volume?

Shrinking is very safe. Your data is not affected by the Shrink or Expand options. In addition, the immutable information is independent of the location of unallocated space or user space.

2. What's the difference between shrinkage rolls and expansion rolls?

The Shrink Volume feature helps create unallocated space to the right of a partition as needed. Users cannot move it. The Extend Volume feature is available only when there is contiguous unallocated space to the right of the partition that needs expanding.

When you shrink D drive, the unallocated space will be located after the D partition, not next to C drive. Thus, you cannot use it to extend C drive even if there is unallocated space.