I was always under the impression that Disk Management was not smart enough to shrink a partition unless it had a chuck of contiguous space at the end of the partition that it could in effect just chop off. I was under the impression that for anything more advanced than that a 3rd party tool would be needed.
However, I asked Disk Management to shrink an 8TB partition on a rotating media disk drive by 500GB and it looks like it may be doing it, but Disk Management has gone completely unresponsive. Task Manager shows that I am both reading and writing to that drive at a rate of about 25MB/s so there is clearly activity on that drive.
Yes, it is a USB disk in a 5 bay enclosure so that may slow it down, but it does not give me warm fuzzies, especially when Disk Management gives no status update. It just seems to hang unresponsive.
Anyone see this behavior and does it sound normal?
Is this some newer capability is Disk Management or yet another thing that I misunderstood?

However, I asked Disk Management to shrink an 8TB partition on a rotating media disk drive by 500GB and it looks like it may be doing it, but Disk Management has gone completely unresponsive. Task Manager shows that I am both reading and writing to that drive at a rate of about 25MB/s so there is clearly activity on that drive.
Yes, it is a USB disk in a 5 bay enclosure so that may slow it down, but it does not give me warm fuzzies, especially when Disk Management gives no status update. It just seems to hang unresponsive.
Anyone see this behavior and does it sound normal?
Is this some newer capability is Disk Management or yet another thing that I misunderstood?

My Computers
System One System Two
-
- OS
- Win11 Pro 24H2
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Self-built
- CPU
- Intel i7 11700K
- Motherboard
- ASUS Prime Z590-A MB
- Memory
- 64GB (Waiting for warranty replacement of another 64GB for 128GB total)
- Graphics Card(s)
- No GPU - Built-in Intel Graphics
- Sound Card
- Integrated
- Monitor(s) Displays
- HP Envy 32
- Screen Resolution
- 2560 x 1440
- Hard Drives
- 1 x 1TB NVMe SSD
1 x 2TB NVMe SSD
1 x 4TB NVMe SSD
3 x 512GB 2.5" SSD
1 x 4TB 2.5" SSD
5 x 8TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
- PSU
- Corsair HX850i
- Case
- Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case
- Cooling
- Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Home Computer Specifications, Configuration, and Usage Notes General Specifications ASUS Prime Z590-A motherboard, serial number M1M0KC222467ARP Intel Core i7-11700K CPU (11th Gen Rocket Lake / LGA 1200 Socket) 128GB Crucial Ballistix RGB DDR4 3200 MHz DRAM (4 x 32GB) Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black CPU cooler Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Corsair LL-120 RGB Fans (Qty. 3)
- Keyboard
- Corsair K70 Max RGB Magnetic Keyboard
- Mouse
- Logitech MX Master 3
- Internet Speed
- 1Gb Up / 1 Gb Down
- Browser
- Edge
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender
- Other Info
- The five 8TB drives and three 512GB SSDs are part of a DrivePool using StableBit DrivePool software. The three SSDs are devoted purely to caching for the 8TB drives. All of the important data is stored in triplicate so that I can withstand simultaneous failure of 2 disks.
Networking: 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6e
-
- Operating System
- Win11 Pro 23H2
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2
- CPU
- Intel i7-1255U
- Memory
- 16 GB
- Graphics card(s)
- Intel Iris Xe Graphics
- Sound Card
- Realtek® ALC3306-CG codec
- Monitor(s) Displays
- 13.3-inch IPS Display
- Screen Resolution
- WQXGA (2560 x 1600)
- Hard Drives
- 2 TB 4 x 4 NVMe SSD
- PSU
- USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 Power / Charging
- Mouse
- Buttonless Glass Precision Touchpad
- Keyboard
- Backlit, spill resistant keyboard
- Internet Speed
- 1Gb Up / 1Gb Down
- Browser
- Edge
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender
- Other Info
- WiFi 6e / Bluetooth 5.1 / Facial Recognition / Fingerprint Sensor / ToF (Time of Flight) Human Presence Sensor