Why is partitioning good

I installed W indows 10 on a new SSD and missed the option "unallocated space on disk 0". Is it really ne cessary to partition SSD? Was this reply helpful? Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Thanks for your feedback. Choose where you want to search below Search Search the Community. Search the community and support articles Windows Windows 10 Search Community member. This thread is locked.

You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. I have the same question Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. Ken Blake. Do you mean is it necessary to have multiple partitions? Here's an article I wrote on the subject a while back: Planning Your Partitions. How many partitions should I have on my hard drive, what should I use each one for, and how big should each of them be?

You have to have at least one partition on it to use it. The choice you have is whether to have more than one partition, not whether to partition at all. Because only 16 bits were used for addressing, FAT16 has a maximum partition size of 2Gb. Here for example, if you try to shrink your hard disk of GB size via the windows disk management console. That too depends on how far the installed OS and other files are scattered in the disk.

Which separates the OS from user files. This makes it possible to create and back up image files or clone disk only for the operating system and installed software. By partitioning a hard disk you can install more than one OS on a single computer. This can not be done on a Hard disk with a single partition.

So if there are advantages for disk partitioning than what are the disadvantages of Multiple Disk Partitions As it forces the OS to duplicate certain file system administration areas on the disk for each partition. For example, if you have two partitions each with 3GB free space which makes a total of 6GB free space. Even though you may have a total 6GB of free space 3GB each in the two partitions but you can easily copy that 4 GB file had it been a single partition, in that case, you would have a continuous 6GB free space.

Download right-click, Save-As Duration: — 2. One reason I never partition is that you may partition enough to hold Windows and your programs plus some room to grow. As for organization and backup, I keep all of my personal files in my OneDrive folder and its subfolders. My OneDrive folder is designated as my Documents folder and Downloads, Pictures, Music, and Video are subfolders of the OneDrive folder so everything is automatically backed up in addition to my Easus Todo system image and nightly incremental backups.

Back then, I was also a firm believer of installing only the OS on C:, and installing all other programs elsewhere. Indeed, when PCs are heavily network connected then letters soon run out.

I have two 2-terabyte external drives that I use for backups. I robocopy changes weekly to A:, then robocopy changes monthly from A: to B:. That gives me two extra drive letters to work with that would otherwise be wasted. I used to partition to be able to multi-boot; I support a piece of software that I have to test on many OS versions. My Acer came with the drive partitioned into C and D. A year later that 3-year-old Acer died permanently though.

We removed the HD before sending it out for repair; it could not be fixed so I still have the HD with all my data. Why to partition, Leo? Your hard drive is a filing cabinet. Yes, you have created folders in it. But this drawer might have , folders in it. Good luck looking through all that!

It could be perfectly alphabetical, but the sheer size of it makes it unwieldy. My partitioned drive has drawers C:, D:, E: and F: where I can store folders related to work applications in one drawer, multimedia files in a second, games files in a third and so on, making it much easier to find things without having to search a single drawer the size of a small country. THAT is why we partition drives. I organize things in folders anyway, not partitions.

Definitely partition. I typically install my OS I run Windows and always clean install instead of upgrading. Once I have customized my settings and installed all patches and applications I create an image of my C partition. Eventually after a number of months, performance starts to degrade as garbage piles up Windows has never done a good job with garbage collection. At that point I replace my C partition with the previously made image, apply all outstanding patches then make a new image.

I like partitions!! I keep! The hard.. My Vista laptop came with two partitions, and a hidden one for the OS Restore. The second visible partition was for data. The C, E, and hidden drives drove me nuts and the second drives were always confused. I gave up, killed the partition nonsense, reformatted and installed new. Partitions are outdated, unnecessary, and usually cause later problems.

I use my C Drive to run the computer and try to keep it small. I for Opus programs. At the end I have five drives that are external drives. With this setup, if you have an unrecoverable crash you can just reformat and reinstal Windows and lose none of your data. If you just have the C drive and are not particularly computer savvy you are likely to lose all your data. I have always used just the one partition but recently decided to go for two partitions; one for OS and installed programs C — second for data only G.

I store full system images on external HDD, and that system gives me much smaller images to work with. Means quicker creation and restoration times plus uses less space on external hard drive. Doing it this way the folders can grow to any size instead of dealing with the problem of one of the partitions outgrowing its size. In 30 years I have never lost my D, E or F drives partitioned 2 drives but many, many times have had to re-install my c drive backup. In most cases file corruption or virus attacks will happen to the main drive not to general program areas.

I have only ever backed up my c drive and always to a usb drive with perfect results. With the speed of modern drives it is not necessary to partition a drive. If you have never had a hard drive fail, then you are about due. They all have mechanical moving parts and will eventually fail. I would never trust my important data to just one location. I work for a HD manufacture and have talked with hundreds if not thousands of people who have lost their data because it is not backed up.

Backup is a fraction of the cost of Data Recovery. I want to just have my hard disc with one C partition how do I remove D and save all data to C at the same time. Well, to each his own opinion.

After managing backups on dozens of office computers for several companies over the last 15 years, I have learned this: Almost any single partition hard drive can be salvaged using a variety of methods. The only times I have seen catastrophic loss of data was on hard drives with multiple partitions.

Ask anyone who has lost mission critial data. Once that happens, they often become converts to single partitions. Internally, I would use the second HD for all of my personal data and suchlike, including a Downloads Folder with separate Sub-Folders for each downloaded ancillary, whether those be programs or files.

Still internally, I would have automatic back-ups to the original HD, which would also contain the usual programs, systems etc such as Windows.

Generally those main systems such as Windows have some form of Recovery such as CDs, without a need to backup. Externally, as I am actually running, I have been forced to use the internal HD for all of my personal requirements including the Downloads Folder; and as supplied, it has a D: Partition with the general Systems, Windows etc.

Whilst it is fairly easy to find out the range of standard programs such as Windows, required to do a Recovery, it is more difficult to keep track of all those miscellaneous programs, routines etc garnered over the years.

This is where the Downloads Folder comes in to play, being an inherent Aide-Memoire of those programs. I have four hard disks in my computer. Partitioning just the first one 1TB as C: and D: was advantegous for me because the system files and some software that insisted on C: were causing frequent fragmentation problems and if left as a whole, every defrag would have taken hours.

Now with C: sized as MB, defrag takes only about minutes. I found out that D: and other drives need defragging only once or twice a year which can be done overnight.

Another advantage is the infections and searches are usually in C: and scans are much quicker this way. It is also easy to back up all the drive to a fraction of one of the 1. I used to have several partions but now have the same 3 on each of 3 hard drives in 2 removable caddies:- C for OS and programs. D for downloaded Program installation files and E for all my data. I regularly clone the whole of drive 1 to drive 2 using Paragon Drive Copy.

Then remove it and insert the drive 3 to which I copy the following week or so. All 3 drives are fully bootable. I also have a tendency to forget which partition I put a particular file, picture, or whatever in. This is also a very easy way when you install a program, yet make it accessible from either desktop. Hope this helps some of you. I have been doing this for years, and as I have my own company with quite a bit of work, I can honestly say, that this is very good!

The last partition is ONLY for back-up purposes. Hope this helps! As Leo pointed out, multiple partitions in a single physical drive do not protect you against hard disk failure and, yes, since it may cause files you need concurrently to be physically distant from each other on the hard disk, due to partitioning, it will slow down the computer being that hard disk reading is one of the slowest things a computer does.

Certainly, Windows files are being used almost constantly. If you place your data files in another partition, the reading mechanism will be jumping all over if you happen to need to scan a large database. What would be the reason for supplying new computers with partitioned hard disks? At present, the disk with GB can be seen everywhere with the expansion of computer disk space, so to partition a hard drive with a large amount of space become more and more urgent.

How to partition a hard drive? Maybe use 3rd-party partition utility. You can also set up an emergency partition. Some computer manufacturers Lenovo, for example supply a built-in emergency partition on some of their PCs, but you can make your own, if your PC lacks one. Finally, partitioning lets you try out other operating systems—like Linux, for example.

First, back up your data.