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On 01/09/2016 08:04, gevisz wrote: |
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> I have bought an external 5TB Western Digital hard drive |
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> that I am going to use mainly for backing up some files |
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> in my home directory and carrying a very big files, for |
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> example a virtual machine image file, from one computer |
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> to another. This hard drive is preformatted with NTFS. |
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> Now, I am going to format it with ext4 which probably |
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> will take a lot of time taking into account that it is |
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> going to be done via USB connection. So, before formatting |
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> this hard drive I would like to know if it is still |
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> advisable to partition big hard drives into smaller |
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> logical ones. |
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it will take about 5 seconds to partition it. |
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And a few more to mkfs it. |
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Are you sure you aren't thinking of mkfs with ext2 (which did take hours |
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for a drive that size? |
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> |
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> For about 20 last years, following an advice of my older |
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> colleague, I always partitioned all my hard drives into |
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> the smaller logical ones and do very well know all |
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> disadvantages of doing so. :) |
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So you are following 20 year-old advice for hardware relevant to 20 |
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years ago and not taking tech advances into account ? :-) |
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> |
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> But what are disadvantages of not partitioning a big |
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> hard drive into smaller logical ones? |
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You only get 1 mount point |
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Some ancient software might whinge and complain about not having a |
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partition table present. |
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The drive vendor no longer has a place to put their magic sekrit |
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phone-home data collection stuff. Oh wait, that's a benefit and belongs |
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below |
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> |
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> Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive |
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> into smaller logical ones and why? |
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The only reason to partition a drive is to get 2 or more |
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smaller ones that differ somehow (size, inode ratio, mount options, etc) |
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Go with no partition table by all means, but if you one day find you |
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need one, you will have to copy all your data off, repartition, and copy |
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your data back. If you are certain that will not happen (eg you will |
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rather buy a second drive) then by all means dispense with partitions. |
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They are after all nothing more than a Microsoft invention from the 80s |
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so people could install UCSD Pascal next to MS-DOS |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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