Why Partition a Hard drive?

Free space on the hard disk must be partitioned before it can be used by the operating system. Partitioning the drive reserves a physical portion of the hard drive space for use as a logical drive, or volume, which can be addressed by the operating system. The operating system sees the hard disk space as volume. Volumes are represented in Windows by letters, such as C:, E:, D: and so on.

A separate file system is created in each of the volumes. A file system will organize and retrieve information stored in the volumes of the hard disk. It is better to go for partitioning if the capacity of the hard disk is increasing. The separate and different file systems created in each of the partitions will enable the system to handle log files, system files and data files, separately and effectively.

The primary benefit of partitioning helps in either reinstalling or restoring the operating system in its corresponding drive, without interfering with the other drives or volumes. Partitioning separates operating systems and program files from user files. This will allow frequently used programs and data to exist in one place.

Keeping the cache and log files separated from the data files will allow the dynamic allocation of memory to a file, and expand it to the maximum extent while not disturbing the remaining data. If any file gets corrupted in a file system, it is still safe to go for formatting that drive, without disturbing other file systems.

Smaller file systems will also perform efficiently by disk partitioning, and the overall performance of the system will be raised. Multiple partitioning done in the case of Linux, Unix and Macintosh operating systems will have more advantages. The directories like /tmp, /usr, /var, or home directory will be allocated with their own file systems. If there is any problem with any one of them then it can be solved individually, without creating disturbances in other files.

Partitioning will reduce the complexity of the hard disk, and enhance the performance of the operating system used in the computer.