How to partition a hard drive or ssd drive: all the information

At the time of mounting a new equipment or main hard disk in our system, we enter into doubts about the partitions, for this reason we bring you the tutorial on how to partition a hard disk or SSD disk.

What is a hard drive partition?

The hard disk is one of the most important parts of a computer, since not only all files are stored on it, but also the operating system that we use is stored. When installing a new operating system, it generates some partitions automatically, so it is extremely useful and important in some cases to know what the function of each of the hard disk partitions is, how they can be created and how to modify them. manually.

First of all we must be clear about what these hard drive partitions mean. It refers to logical storage units, which are used to divide a physical hard disk into several parts, in the same way as if they were different disks. Each partition can use diverse file systems, these are the format in which the information is saved, and the computer uses them to control the way in which the data is stored and identified for its use. In summary we can say that the partitions divide the disk into several parts, and the system identifies those parts so that it is much easier and faster to access the information stored in them.

One of the advantages of having multiple hard drive partitions is that they function as an external storage medium. You can store your files on one disk and the operating system on another, and in case the operating system fails and recovers unrecoverable files, you will not have lost any information or files since they are stored on a totally separate disk.

Another advantage is that they can install different operating systems, since each partition can have its own logical storage unit.

Types of hard disk partitions and file systems

There are three types of hard drive partitions: primary, extended, or logical.

• Primary: are those "raw" or main divisions of the hard disk, of which there can only be four and can be perceived by any operating system. Extended: or also secondary calls, were designed to break the limit of the four main partitions. It is essentially created to support multiple logical partitions within it and does not have a specific file system. Logical: these are the partitions that can occupy a portion or an entire extended partition, in addition to having a specific file system.

As for file systems, the most common examples are FAT, NTFS and EXT. Although there are many other types, these are the most used in both Linux and Windows.

• FAT (File Allocation Table): It is an old file system, very simple but vigorous. Today it is mostly used to format portable or small storage drives such as SSDs or USB sticks. NTFS (New Technology File System): Created by Microsoft, this is a proprietary file system used by Windows in all its current versions. EXT (extended filesystem): mostly used by Linux kernel, its most recent format is ext4, successor of ext3 and it is a very safe format.

We recommend reading How to mount a hard disk drive as a folder in Windows 10.

How to partition a hard drive quickly

If you like the idea of ​​being able to distribute your files on different disks different from that of the Windows operating system, we can offer you some tools that will be very useful. For this, it is worth saying that Windows has its own hard disk partitioning tools , and the versions used for Windows 7, 8 or Windows 10 are the most complete so far. These allow you to reduce and increase the size of partitions and delete them, as well as change paths and letters of a drive and format them.

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We also recommend reading our guide to the best SSDs of the moment.

To access the Windows tool, you must search for the application "Create and format hard drive partitions". Next we must locate the drive that we want to format and click on it with the right button. A window will appear and click on "Reduce volume" and insert the amount we want to use for the new partition: 2GB, 4GB or 100GB.

The bad thing about these is that they turn out to have a somewhat intuitive, unfriendly interface and it is not very powerful either, adding that it does not recognize ext partitions. But there are two very good free options to make the partitions of the hard disk in your Windows, those are: EaseUS Partition Maste and Paragon Partition Manager. Both tools support ext, NTFS and FAT file systems, they also have a very simple interface and with it you can create, divide, resize, delete, combine, understand partitions and shrink them as well.

Ideally, partitioning your hard drive is done from a bootable hard drive and not through Windows. Because of this, partition tools can be added to USB boot disks.

As always, we recommend reading our tutorials and if you have any questions, you can contact us and we will respond.