Logical Partition

A logical partition is a division of the storage space on a physical disk. For example, the hard drive of your computer can be divided into several drives, each with its own drive letter. In Windows the hard drive is historically mapped as the C: drive. It may be 300 GB in size. But it is considered as the best practice to divide the drive into two or more logical partitions which will give you a C: drive, a D: drive, etc.If you have two partitions, the operating system and programs can then be installed and run from the C: drive and your data can be moved to the D: drive.

How to create logical partition?

• Click on the Start button then "Control Panel” and then double click on "Administrative Tools"
• Double-click "Computer Management then "Disk Management" on the left side of the window, which can be seen under "Storage." If the hard drive has never been used then it must be initialized. Click "Next" through the prompts to initialize the drive. When it gets finished, a black rectangle titled "Unallocated" represents the hard drive on the bottom of the window will be displayed
• Right-click on the "Unallocated" rectangle and choose "New Partition” and then "Next." Select "Primary Partition" and click "Next."
• Type the amount of space in megabytes (MB) that you want to apply to the primary partition. Keep its number small if you want to create many logical partitions
• Click "Next" through the remaining prompts, then press "Finish." Windows will recommend formatting the partition using the NTFS file system. Usually, you should not change this unless you have a specific reason for doing so. Primary partition is now created and the remaining space of the drive is labeled "Unallocated."
• Right-click the remaining unallocated space and click on "New Partition" and then "Next."
• Choose "Extended Partition" and then "Next." Windows automatically assigns all remaining hard drive space to the extended partition. You need to keep its setting because all of the logical partitions will be divided within the extended partition
• Click "Next" through the prompts unless you reach the end. Click "Finish" The extended partition is now displayed with a green rectangle labeled "Free Space"
• Right-click the "Free Space" rectangle and click on “New Logical Drive" And then, "Next" twice
• Type the amount of space (MB) that you want to assign to the first logical partition, and then click "Next" through the prompts until you reach the end. Click "Finish." The first logical partition is now displayed as a light blue rectangle while the remainder of the extended partition is still labeled "Free Space."
• Repeat previous two steps until all of the free space has been subdivided into logical partitions. Finally close the Disk Manager

Benefit of creating partition

• Creating single partition for all the data will lead to deeper reach to the folder and number of sub directory increases, resulting in the delay of search and seek time to the data will be higher. But if you have separate partition you would just have to look within that small logical space
• You can easily defragment your drive within few minute
• you can backup all the files at once to other drive or simply first half to one and rest to another drive
• Installing the new OS will be so safe and it will not affect your data

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