Partitioning, Partition Sizes and Drive Lettering

Partitioning, Partition Sizes and Drive Lettering

Partitioning the hard disk is the act of dividing it into pieces; into logical volumes. This is one of the first things done when setting up a new hard disk, because partitions are one of the major disk structures that define how the disk is laid out. In fact, you must partition the hard disk, even if only "partitioning" it into a single partition, before you can format and use the disk.

The choice of how the disk is partitioned is important because partition size has an important impact on both performance and on how efficiently the disk's space is utilized. Even though in many cases you can fit an entire disk into one partition, it is rare that you will actually want to do this, for performance reasons. This section explains the reasons why, and also examines the commonly asked question: should I use FAT32?

Next: FAT Sizes: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32