Convert Single Partition to Multi Partition

[zachoooo]

I currently have a media server running Windows Server 2012 R2 on a Hardware RAID 10 array with a single partition. As time has gone on, I've increasingly run into a variety of issues with Plex, Sonarr, File Management, Boot times, etc and I'd like to try to move over to an entirely GNU/Linux based setup. The problem being that I have many terabytes of data stored on my hard drives in a single partition. This was obviously a stupid move, but I'm not sure how I could go about fixing this without losing all my data. Is there anyway to move that data over to a new partition without losing everything so that I can separate my data from the windows environment?

[Electronics Wizardy]

use your backup drives?

 

But linux can read ntfs, so install linux, then move the data to over drives and convert?

 

also id use raid 5/6 over 10. Hope your not using mobo raid.

[brwainer]

Here is a general list of steps, regardless of what is stored on the partition:

1. Clear enough space for the new parition(s) you want to make - you can't split an existing partition into two
2. (Optional but yields better results) Defragment the partition with "defrag <volume> /X /U /V" (replace volume with the drive letter and a colon; /X means consolidate free space, /U means print the progress on screen, /V means print verbose progress)
3. Open Disk Management, right click on the existing partition, and choose "Shrink Volume". Enter the size to shrink it by (it will show the resulting size as well) and hit enter. If this single volume is your boot partition, then you'll need to boot into a "LiveCD" tool (a tool that boots off a CD/DVD or USB drive, and has a tool to modify disk partitions. Usually based on an open source OS). If the volume is ReFS, then there is no way to shrink the volume, either in Windows or in other tools.
4. Create a new partition(s) in the newly emptied free part of the drive.

[Mikensan]

If you're going to be running Linux or the like, a lot of the distros will run happily from a flash drive. May not need to touch your array at all.