Maybe you're someone who loves to put everything in a certain place. Partitioning lets you add more dividers between data types. Perhaps you'd like to create one partition for games and apps, and another for documents, music, and similar files. If you find that the organization methods available to you on a single partition aren't enough, adding new ones could help keep your data straight.
We've discussed separating your OS files and personal data in most of the above reasons. But that's not the only use for partitioning a hard drive. You can also add a partition to a drive to install another operating system on it. Perhaps you want to run Linux alongside Windows, but your computer can't handle a virtual machine.
You can create a new drive partition for Linux without touching your existing Windows system. Alternatively, you could install an older version of Windows on a separate partition for backwards compatibility purposes.
Another multi-platform use for partitioning is to work with multiple file systems. While you won't need to do this with your internal drive, it can make external drives more useful if you use them with multiple OSes.
Making one partition FAT32 or exFAT would work with pretty much any platform, while you could still keep a separate Mac-friendly file system on another partition. On the flipside, there are several reasons you should avoid partitioning your hard drive. Here are a few of them.
If you're not careful, having multiple partitions could lead to a data loss disaster. While Windows shows separate entries for each partition you've created, those partitions are all still on the same physical drive. Because of this, if your hard drive fails, is destroyed by a natural disaster, or otherwise stops working, you'll lose everything on it.
This could be a shock for a new user, who's used to every drive in the This PC window representing a separate physical device. Thus, backing up your data in Windows , no matter what partition it's on, is crucial. You need to have multiple copies of data for a proper backup. One of the biggest hassles when you have several partitions is keeping them straight.
With any more than three or four partitions, you'll likely lose the organization benefits just trying to keep track of them. And even with an extra partition or two, you'll still have to set up Windows to save your files and software on the other partitions.
Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Tim Fisher. VP and General Manager, Lifewire. Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the VP and General Manager of Lifewire. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn. Updated on September 19, Tweet Share Email. In This Article. How to Partition a Hard Drive. What's the Purpose?
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Find Downloaded Files on an iPhone. Use Your iPhone as a Webcam. Hide Private Photos on iPhone. Take Screenshot by Tapping Back of iPhone. Should You Upgrade to Windows 11? Browse All Windows Articles. Copy and Paste Between Android and Windows. The number you choose depends on what you want to use the other partition for. Creating a new partition using the New Simple Volume wizard. Right-click this entry, select New Simple Volume, and let the resulting wizard guide you through the remaiing steps of the process.
If you decide to enable compression later, you can do it easily enough: In the Disk Management tool, right-click the partition and select Properties, Compress this drive to save space.
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