How to partition a hard drive: one partition or more

The rules for working with hard disks (hard disks, HDD) have already been said a lot, but still, as before, the question arises how to properly partition the hard drive. And, what is especially surprising, both beginners and computer gurus with many years of experience are still tormented by doubts about the correctness of their choice. There is a lot of information about how to partition a hard disk , but it is subjective. Having broken the hard drive in a certain way, the user gets used to this state of things, taking it for granted. Here, really, really is conservatism in its pure form. Obviously, the recommendation "do as I" in this case is absolutely meaningless, so we will consider in more detail the existing options how to split the hard drive.

Inside the hard drive there are several metal or plastic disks with a magnetic layer, on which information is recorded by magnetization. In order for the programs to work with it, it is necessary to create a logical structure, the so-called section, and format it. After that, any operating system will be able to "see" the hard drive connected to the computer. For example, the expression "drive C" means that on the hard drive there is a partition formatted correctly in any file system, which is assigned an alphabetic designation. The user can copy to him and from him any files, that is, to work in the usual way. Everything is simple and clear: "drive C" is that metal box in the computer case, and "drive D" is that other, outwardly the same. When you connect such a hard drive to another computer with its hard drive, the letter designation will become different, but all other features will be preserved.

With the advent of capacious models of HDD, the capacity of which exceeded 100 GB, the question of how to partition a hard disk began to be very acute. The fact is that on the magnetic surface, not one partition can be created, but several, within the available disk volume. Each section gets its own letter. That is, the device is one, and there are several disks on it. Physically, there are no marks on the surface and the hard drive can be repartitioned (divided) as you like and at any time. Remember the cartoon about 10 hats from one skin? So with the hard drive: you can create one large partition on the entire disk, and you can at least 20. That's why everyone wants to learn how to split the hard drive.

The breakdown is carried out by special programs. The most popular are Paragon Partition Manager and Acronis Disk Director. The new hard drive must be connected to the computer on which Windows is installed, installed and run the desired application. The graphical interface allows you to break even the beginner. The main thing is to choose the new disk, not the working one. And how to split a hard drive on a laptop? For these purposes, there are bootable DVDs with the above programs. Booted from them, the user is provided with the same user-friendly graphical interface. It is acceptable to do much easier and perform the breakdown by means of Windows. To do this, you need to boot from the Windows distribution disk. In the drive selection window, there are prompts for installation, following which you can create a partition (s) on the new hard drive.

It is usually difficult to decide whether to create one partition on the entire disk or several. Advantages of one section:

- all the information is visible right away and there is no need to remember which section contains the particular file. Films are in the folder "Movies", music in "Music", etc .;

- no problem with the selection of the right size for each disk (partition). Capacity is limited by the total amount of HDD;

- Defragmentation is more convenient.

Disadvantages:

- You can not use the cloning tools to quickly and easily get your customized operating system, and not install, if necessary, from the distribution with the subsequent installation of the necessary programs;

- The swap file with incorrect configuration (dynamic) is fragmented.