Is using an hdd without partition OK?

[FordGT90Concept]

Then you have 2 partitions. 1 unusable as a drive.

Actually 3:
1) Recovery Partition (450 MiB)
2) EFI System (100 MiB)
3) boot, pagefile, crash dump, primary partition (476.39 GiB)

Windows always creates the Recovery Partition although I'm not entirely sure why.

 

[Nabarun]

Actually 3:
1) Recovery Partition (450 MiB)
2) EFI System (100 MiB)
3) boot, pagefile, crash dump, primary partition (476.39 GiB)

Windows always creates the Recovery Partition although I'm not entirely sure why.

I don't have any of those extra partitions. I needed them for other OSes (now I use VBox) so I didn't let windows do it.

 

[Jetster]

I don't have any of those extra partitions. I needed them for other OSes (now I use VBox) so I didn't let windows do it.
View attachment 78890

That's fine if they are a nuisance for you but there is no need to remove them. I could see how a linux user would be annoyed but them. But we are way past the OP on the question at hand. Obviously we all have our own opinion about partitions.

 

[slozomby]

I don't have any of those extra partitions. I needed them for other OSes (now I use VBox) so I didn't let windows do it.
View attachment 78890

bleh, making drive letter for pics/media/stuff.... isolating pics from movies is what folders are for

carving off data space is one thing. carving up data space into tiny little chunks is nuts. when i have single drive systems ( with a single os) i'd carve out a d: drive for my docs and pics and whatnot.

my desktop looks like this
c: windows and apps (Physical drive ( ssd) )
d: games ( physical drive ( ssd) )
e: everything else (huge raid set )

and d: isnt really necessary but i had a spare ssd so figured i'd put it to use. otherwise it'd just be a part of E:


the only useful thing carving the disks up into tiny chunks does is prevent you from eating all the space with one type of file. this is useful when you have things that autogrow like log files or tempdb ( sql) or that way if the log partition fills it wont affect the rest of the system. but user data changes and grows. i have 100gb of mp3's ( give or take) it slowly grows why cap myself at 110gb for no reason.

now tons of drive letters due to lots of different physical drives is a different senario. there you might be seeking performance gains by having different spindles do different tasks. or you could just have inherited tons of smaller drives.

Servers get mutliple partitions because multiple paths to the san help with io and giving each database its own partition makes it far easier to move it around between machine clusters. but that. if you want to discuss how to effectively optimize your san for SQL clusters i'll happily take that to pms.

That's fine if they are a nuisance for you but there is no need to remove them. I could see how a linux user would be annoyed but them. But we are way past the OP on the question at hand. Obviously we all have our own opinion about partitions.

even on linux.
/
/boot
/home
/var/log
swap
/opt/appdata( insert app name here)
what else do you need

no need for /home/username/pictures and /home/username/movies as separate partitions

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't have any of those extra partitions. I needed them for other OSes (now I use VBox) so I didn't let windows do it.
View attachment 78890

Clearly not EFI. It's with the introduction of GPT and EFI that the extra two hidden partitions are created. EFI refuses to boot without the EFI partition.

 

[Nabarun]

bleh, making drive letter for pics/media/stuff.... isolating pics from movies is what folders are for

carving off data space is one thing. carving up data space into tiny little chunks is nuts. when i have single drive systems ( with a single os) i'd carve out a d: drive for my docs and pics and whatnot.

my desktop looks like this
c: windows and apps (Physical drive ( ssd) )
d: games ( physical drive ( ssd) )
e: everything else (huge raid set )

and d: isnt really necessary but i had a spare ssd so figured i'd put it to use. otherwise it'd just be a part of E:


the only useful thing carving the disks up into tiny chunks does is prevent you from eating all the space with one type of file. this is useful when you have things that autogrow like log files or tempdb ( sql) or that way if the log partition fills it wont affect the rest of the system. but user data changes and grows. i have 100gb of mp3's ( give or take) it slowly grows why cap myself at 110gb for no reason.

now tons of drive letters due to lots of different physical drives is a different senario. there you might be seeking performance gains by having different spindles do different tasks. or you could just have inherited tons of smaller drives.

Servers get mutliple partitions because multiple paths to the san help with io and giving each database its own partition makes it far easier to move it around between machine clusters. but that. if you want to discuss how to effectively optimize your san for SQL clusters i'll happily take that to pms.



even on linux.
/
/boot
/home
/var/log
swap
/opt/appdata( insert app name here)
what else do you need

no need for /home/username/pictures and /home/username/movies as separate partitions

Dude, you are describing what you think YOU need and what YOU don't. I had different things in mind when I thought multiple partitions would suit me better. I don't have a RAID array or even another working HDD atm. So in the event of a HDD crash, it is easier and less time-consuming to scan and recover data from smaller drives than from a single huge drive. If I had my personal photos and videos in the same drive as downloaded videos, I'd have to scan/recover/restore EVERYTHING in that drive and then filter out stuff. I don't think that's a smart thing to do. As far as performance aspect goes, a mechanical HDD won't get the speed of an SSD whichever way you partition it. The benefits in terms of speed are ... meh... at best. Besides, it suits me to organize different things in different drives when there can be hundreds of folders in each drive. Same applies to the Linux reference you made. And /home/username/pictures and /home/username/movies would be on the same drive in different directories - not partitions.

Clearly not EFI. It's with the introduction of GPT and EFI that the extra two hidden partitions are created. EFI refuses to boot without the EFI partition.

Yeah, windows needs that, unlike other OSes.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Linux requires EFI System too. It's mandatory for EFI. EFI applications are installed there so unless you use a lot of them, doesn't have to be very big.

 

[FYFI13]

In the tech industry, when partition is used as a verb, it means to divide the drive up into multiple usable partitions. In all of my training, this is always what it means. The A+, MCSE, etc. all do this.

I'm fully aware that there must be are least one partition on the drive if you want to use it.

Also, an unformatted partition is raw. A drive with no partitions is uninitialized. Once you initialize the drive, and decide what type of partition table it will use(usually MBR or GPT in Windows), the drive already has one large partition. That "unallocated" space is a partition in the partition table.

Correct, although most pre-built PCs and laptops already comes with at least 4 partitions which makes OPs question technically wrong

 

[newtekie1]

Clearly not EFI. It's with the introduction of GPT and EFI that the extra two hidden partitions are created. EFI refuses to boot without the EFI partition.

How do USB drive boot in UEFI then without the EFI partition, they just have a EFI folder?

 

[verycharbroiled]

for my single drive machines (like laptops) i will make 2 partitions (besides whatever the OS makes). one for the OS, one for data. reason is it makes it easier for OS reinstalls, and its easier to backup to the same machine. like backup the OS partition to the data partition. or backup just the data partition to somewhere else.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

How do USB drive boot in UEFI then without the EFI partition, they just have a EFI folder?

Because it's required by UEFI to launch into an operating system (a setup environment can forego it):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition

When a computer is powered up and booted, UEFI firmware loads files stored on the ESP to start installed operating systems and various utilities.

ESP contains the boot loaders or kernel images for all installed operating systems (which are contained in other partitions on the same or any other local storage device), device driver files for hardware devices present in a computer and used by the firmware at boot time, system utility programs that are intended to be run before an operating system is booted, and data files such as error logs.

 

[Erazem]

It's not true that you need at least one partition on every drive. There are file systems out there that will happily use an entire block device without partitioning it first. Now it's true that with uefi booting from such a drive would be problematic, but you can format a drive with btrfs (for example) directly, without any partition table. You can't (easily) boot from it but it will work just fine as a storage drive.

 

[Steevo]

It's not true that you need at least one partition on every drive. There are file systems out there that will happily use an entire block device without partitioning it first. Now it's true that with uefi booting from such a drive would be problematic, but you can format a drive with btrfs (for example) directly, without any partition table. You can't (easily) boot from it but it will work just fine as a storage drive.

You are talking power user, and OP is talking end user. One of these things is not like the other.

OP


No, no additional partitions beyond what the operating system creates are required.

1) Many users create additional partitions to keep files separated for their needs or desires, but they are unneeded.
2) Creating multiple partitions on a single hard drive is detrimental to overall performance.
3) On SSD's (Solid State Drives) the modern version of hard drives with no moving parts, it makes no performance difference to create multiple partitions, but you will use up more storage space for each partition in general than if left as one large partition.
4) If you decide later to add an additional partition Windows can do this for you without much effort, or loss of any data.

 

[slozomby]

2) Creating multiple partitions on a single hard drive is detrimental to overall performance.

nope. performance on a platter will be the same regardless of how many partitions it has. throughput will change based on position of data on the drive independent of how many partitions exist.

3) On SSD's (Solid State Drives) the modern version of hard drives with no moving parts, it makes no performance difference to create multiple partitions, but you will use up more storage space for each partition in general than if left as one large partition.

yeah a couple of MB. its not like you're losing a significant% of the drive.

4) If you decide later to add an additional partition Windows can do this for you without much effort, or loss of any data.

yes you can shrink and add a partition. however if the data you want to move exceeds the free space on the drive you'll have to juggle. the same is true for removing a partition

 

[Erazem]

You are talking power user, and OP is talking end user. One of these things is not like the other.

OP


No, no additional partitions beyond what the operating system creates are required.

1) Many users create additional partitions to keep files separated for their needs or desires, but they are unneeded.
2) Creating multiple partitions on a single hard drive is detrimental to overall performance.
3) On SSD's (Solid State Drives) the modern version of hard drives with no moving parts, it makes no performance difference to create multiple partitions, but you will use up more storage space for each partition in general than if left as one large partition.
4) If you decide later to add an additional partition Windows can do this for you without much effort, or loss of any data.

You're right. If you have to ask then the answer is just put in the os install disk and let it partition the drive the way it wants. If you know what you are doing you can fiddle with the settings and if you really know what you are doing you might get some more performance for your use scenario, but for most people the os (Windows/Linux/OsX/*BSD/....) will partition the drive just fine on it's own and changing things just for the sake of it will likely lead to lower performance. The people who wrote the os installer knew what they were doing and unless you have a specific and justifiable reason for changing the defaults leave them alone.

 

[wildgoose]

If you only have one physical disk, have at least 2 partitions on it can be quite beneficial. You can use one for the OS, and use the other for data (and/or for portable programs that don't require an installer). This allows you to easily install the OS from scratch (by re-format c drive) without disturb your data partition. You can also cleanly image the OS/Data partition separately.

I do this for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and has served me well for many years with multiple OS upgrades that are clean install. Many of the programs I use are portable (or can be made Portable via software such as VMware ThinApp), so after a fresh OS install, these apps can be run directly.

This is much more difficult with only one partition. If you want to install from scratch, you'll have to backup all your data elsewhere, format the drive, then install, and copy data back. Much more troublesome, and likely won't be done. So the OS install will be an upgrade, with all the crap that it has accumulated previously.

Of course, having a data partition is no substitute for backup.

 

[Drone]

I have two partitions and never noticed any slowdown, it's actually even better like that. Stuff I don't use quite often is on that partition so Windows won't index/shadow copy that whenever it wants. And it's easier to defrag it that way.

 

[Mussels]

having games on a second partition/drive helps prevent them getting fragmented, as your frequent small writes are done to the C: drive.