A hard disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access digital data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters.
When we buy a new hard drive, then before the hard drive can be used in advance we need to partition and reformat the hard drive. However with Operating Systems like Windows 7 we don’t need to perform this, as the process of formatting the hard disk is fully automatic. still its not a bad idea to know how and what actually happens earlier.
Partitioning a hard disk is divided by the size of the hard drive into several logical parts. For example if we want our hard drives so that later on there are 3 pieces of the drive (i.e. Drive C, D and E) then we need partition into 3 parts. While the format the hard drive is the initialization process and provide a file system on the hard disk so the disk can be used by the operating system. For example for the Windows operating system we can format the hard drive with FAT or NTFS file system.
Please note that, you can use both FAT and NTFS for Windows XP, where as Windows 7 Its mandatory and you have no choice than to format it in NTFS.
Some of the reasons why a hard drive needs to be partitioned are as follows:
- To further facilitate the organization of files, for example a single partition to store the operating system and application programs, a second partition for data storage and a third partition for data backup.
If you are serious about Backup, you cant backup your files on the same partition where the Operating System resides. For better safety, use different disk for Backing up of Data.
- Splitting a single operating system with another operating system if we intend to install more than one operating system.
- Improve the performance of your computer (hard disk access time), especially for large-sized hard drive.
There are several types of partitions that we can create on your hard drive are:
Primary Partition
Partitions are commonly used as a storage operating system. In this there is a primary partition boot partition that stores the files needed to start up the operating system. A hard disk can be partitioned into a maximum of 4 pieces without the extended partition primary partition, or a maximum of 3 pieces of primary partition if there is an extended partition.
Extended Partition
Is a partition boundary between the primary partition and logical partition. In the Extended partition can consist of one or more logical partition. Extended partition is not a drive but only limiting it.
Logical Partition
Logical partition Is part of the Extended Partition and used as data storage.
To partition a hard drive we can use several ways, among which:
- Partitioning a hard disk when installing the Operating System.
- Using the Disk Management tool of Windows.
- Using a disk partition management programs such as EASEUS Partition Master.
Hard Disk Drive were Introduced by IBM in 1956, as technology advances, hard disk drives have fallen in cost and physical size over the years while dramatically increasing in capacity.
Hard disk drives have been the dominant device for secondary storage of data in general purpose computers since the early 1960s.