Disk partitioning

lastmod 2021-11-05created 2016-04-1519 edits

Disk partitioning is the division of a hard disk drive's storage space into separate data areas known as "partitions". These partitions can be created, deleted, and modified using a partition editor or partitioning utility program. Once a disk is divided into several partitions, directories and files of different categories are stored in different partitions. More partitions give more control, but too many become hard to manage. How space management, access permissions, and directory searching are added depends on the type of file system installed on the partition. Since the supported partition size varies depending on the file system installed on the partition, partition sizes need to be considered carefully.

Categories

• DiskPartitioning:Example:UEFI_with_GPT: how to partition UEFI with GPT using fdisk.
• Partition table
• Partition type
• Partition alignment

Windows partition

• Clarifying the exact concepts of active, system, and boot partitions ¹

A summary of Windows partitions.

• Active partition: the partition set in the disk's MBR to be used for booting.
• System partition: the partition where the Windows boot manager is located and which controls Windows booting.
• Boot partition: the partition where the system files (the Windows folder) of the currently booted Windows are located.

Example

BIOS with MBR

See also

• fdisk
• Swap file, Swap space
• ArchLinux:Installation: used during installation.

Favorite site

• Wikipedia (en) Disk partitioning
• [Recommended] Partitioning - ArchWiki
• [Recommended] Linux Partition HOWTO - 4. Partitioning requirements
• KLDP - An explanation of partitions

References