The Hard Drive - To Partitition or Not to Partition ?

Question

That is the question.
What are the advantages of partitioning the Hard Drive ?
If it is to have a back up area on the disc, and the hard drive throws a wobbler, where do you stand then ?

Answer 1

It is question I went threw long time ago, a lot of people say that when you partition you create a new drive you can copy or back up to it . I say and after experience that a partition you created is not a real drive it is logic and when you lose the main parturition for any reason you can't get to your DATA even though it is there that happened to me. so the best thing to do and that's what I did I installed two hard drives one to use one to back up to.

BACKING UP ON A PARTITION LIKE YOU BACK UP ON PIECE OF ICE. this is my opinion.

Answer 2

Ditto on the hardware failure, anything that takes down the drive will take all of it.



I have six hard drives on this XP box ranging from 120Gb to 300Gb and none of them are partitioned. Back in the bad old days when Windoze could only handle small partitions I used to have my free space fragmented over a number of partitions, that sucked. There's some speed advantages to having a smaller logical drive to index, less file system stuff to keep in line, apparently. But I've never seen any benefit.



The partitioning to keep things organized idea is bogus, we've had tree structured directory systems for at least twenty years (I first met Unix in 1985), so we've always been able to put things in named directories.



Linux actually needs different partitions for some uses, it needs them to be separate because it uses different file systems on them. On Linux they are also used for things like preventing log files from strangling the system, when the partition is full the log file can't grow and fill all the free space.

Answer 3

There are various reasons you might want to partition your hard drive:

1. The best reason would be to organise your data in separate partitions and you can name each drive for e.g., d: for music, e: for videos etc etc.

2. You might want to install another operating system along with the current one.



there is no harm in partitioning the hard drive. But also remember, partitioning a hard drive doesn't secure the hard drive as you might think. If there is any fault in the hard drive, none of the partitions will be accessible but if you have more than one hard drive then one is faulty then another one has the data secure.

Answer 4

There are only really four reasons to partition a drive.



1) If you have a habit of breaking OS installs, or like changing, you can have one partition for storage, and another for the OS.



2) If you have data that you want to get at with a very short path, you can mount it's partition at f:/, for example. Bit moot though, especially given MS's love of My xxxxxx folders....



3) If you've got more than one OS, they'll need different partitions, and sometimes different filesystems.



4) If you've something to gain out of having local access to a filesystem that you cannot install your OS onto. I can't actually think of a real-life situation like this.





If any of the above really apply to you, then partition the drive. If not, then there's not a lot of point, really.

You don't build in any redundancy with partitions - if the hard drive dies, it dies, partitions and all.

Answer 5

Well, here is the rub. If you run Microsoft, and the dual partition, C:\ for system, D:\ for files and user folders, when MS crashes and you restore, or re-install, it will format, and totally wipe the entire drive!



Reason #345 that I don't run Microsoft 'virus-Magnet'.



I have more than one partition, on more than one drive in each of my major 10 networked systems. But, I run the 50X faster, virus proof, Linux, just like Microsoft.com, Hotmail.com, and MSN.com does, on their 45,000 computers.



I run http://pclinuxos.com



The EXT3 filesystem is very secure, and self checking, and, with the topography it mandates, writing out from the center of he drive, it accesses faster, and it means no fragmentation can ever occur.



Also, Linux is totally virus proof, as are all the 'Nix's. 78% of all Internet servers, the Fortune 1,000, and all the charities and Public and private schools run Linux, BSD(Mac OS X also is BSD), Solaris.



I saw that all the November PC magazines on the newsstands are hosting Tux the Penguin, mascot of GNU/Linux, on their front covers, because the tipping point was passed some time ago, as 165 world governments and 4500 regional governments, have also embraced the secure, safe OS.



Something really cool is that Linux offers RAID or LVM upon boot up for the install. Logical Volume Management treats all drives you identify on the network as just one big drive, and then, it can also 'stripe' the data, so multiple copies span several physical drives, for fast, safe, restoration!

Answer 6

You mean you want it to just fill up one partition and treat the next one like the same partition? It won't work, you need to repartition it all into one for that. Google gparted CD, download it, and burn it on a CD. Just boot up from that, and it will let you repartition the drive WITHOUT loosing data. :)

Answer 7

Partitioning used to be practiced a lot more and it was simply because the operating systems could not handle the size of large hard drives. The newer operating systems do not have this limitation so there is no need to partition. My suggestion is to install a 2nd hard drive and use it to store your data, or if you feel really froggy go ahead and install the 2nd one and mirror the two drives.

Answer 8

There are many reasons to use hard disk partition software. They all come down to this: Partitioning the hard disk makes your life a lot easier and sometimes saves your data and your neck.





Disk partitioning:







Limits Accidental or Deliberate Damage To Your Data

With Acronis Disk Director Suite, you can separate your applications into separate partitions and put their data in other partitions. If an application becomes corrupted or is accidentally deleted, it is easier to contain the damage in a single partition. Hard drive partition recovery is faster than having to recover the entire hard disk.







Increases Security

Encryption is one of the fundamental tools to protection yourself against theft, corruption or compromise of critical data on your computer. But encryption slows your computer down. With disk partitioning software, you can encrypt just those partitions that need protection and let the other parts of your system run unencrypted, and hence faster.







Helps Your Computer Run Faster

Partitioning a hard drive lets your computer find things faster. Even routine access to information is speeded up because the computer can organize the information more efficiently with smaller directories. Quicker searches for files or directories also result because the computer only has to search a single partition instead of the entire large disk.







Organizes Information

Partitioning the hard drive not only makes it easier for the computer to find things, it makes it easier for you to find things as well. Creating partitions with Acronis Disk Director Suite lets you categorize files and folders in partitions according to logical schemes. You don't have to search endless lists of hundreds or thousands, or even tens of thousands, of folders trying to find a particular file or application.







Increases Productivity

With Acronis Disk Director Suite you can increase your productivity because you spend your time doing useful work rather than hunting for that letter or spreadsheet or other document



from http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/resource/solutions/partitioning/2005/why-partition-my-hdd.html

Answer 9

having a second hard drive is the best thing to do. but if you only have 1 you can make a second logical drive it's not the safest thing. but what i do is. i have one hard drive with to partitions c: and d: and i set my document folder to d: so all my stuff is there music, vids ect so if i reformat my c: drive my stuff is still safe most of the time

Answer 10

If you have a large capacity hard drive, then it is best to partition.

Answer 11

creat a system restore cd back up ur hard drive if something go. wrong . you can use ur system restore cd to put it right