In this article, we will be discussing 10 facts about partitions and volumes that you should know. What is the difference between a partition and a volume?
A partition can be formatted with a file system such as FAT32 or NTFS, and it is assigned a drive letter when it becomes a volume. Volumes are usually used for installing operating systems or applications on your computer. There are many other uses for volumes in different types of systems including RAID arrays, LVM (logical volumes), BitLocker encryption, etc., but these are just some examples of what they can do. If you want to learn more interesting information about how partitions work in all sorts of scenarios then take the time to read through this article!
A partition is a logical division of space on the physical hard disk. For example, if you have 100GB free and want to create 20 partitions that size (100GB), then each would be allocated for use by different operating systems or programs within your computer system. The first partition is typically referred to as Partition One in Windows, while Mac OS refers to it as the “Macintosh HD” volume.
when a partition is formatted with a file system and assigned to drive letter it’s called volume. Information related to an individual volume can be found from the Disk Utility applet inside the utility folder under Applications > Utilities on macOS or simply right-clicking onto any empty area of its corresponding storage device window in Windows Explorer view; in each case clicking Info button.
The definition of a partition is an area on your computer’s hard drive that gets allocated as its own section. A partition can also be formatted and given a file system, which creates what we call a volume. A lot of people mistakenly refer to the term “partition” when they mean “volume.” Volumes are created when partitions are formatted with filesystems such as NTFS or FAT32. The two terms have similar meanings, but volumes technically refer only to configured partitions while partitions may include both preconfigured and unformatted sections of space on your PC’s disk drives.
Partitions are a storage space on your hard drive partitioned to make it look like multiple drives. The main advantage is that they can be used as separate physical disks while still being accessed by the same operating system and file systems.
A volume is when a partition is formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter, for example, C:\. This means if you want to access any information related to this article from another computer or USB flash drive simply plug in the device (as long as it has Windows installed), navigate through My Computer/Computer, find the desired folder, open up Documents then click on the document.
There are many types of volumes or partitions one can create on their hard drive, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Fixed-size: If you want a partition to be always the same size but don’t mind it being smaller when data is deleted then a fixed size is best for you. This type only has a downside if your file system’s maximum capacity diminishes as time goes by; in this case, you’ll have to format the partition again to make more room available for files.
Dynamic volume: A dynamic volume will automatically grow over time until there is no more space left but will shrink back down when unused storage space is needed elsewhere (examples include Windows’ NTFS and Apple’s HFS+).
Clustered volume: A clustered volume is one that has the physical storage space and the file system combined, which means when a partition with this type of formatting fills up it cannot be extended.
Striped Volume: This kind can only work on systems (both Windows and Unix) that support them but will allow for increased I/O performance when multiple partitions are formatted in an offset manner from each other. Cluster size must also be set to match the stripe size you’re using if both exist.
One important thing to keep in mind about volumes or partitions is their mount point; this determines where they appear as individual drives instead of appearing like part of another drive letter (examples include E: F: G, etc.).
A Volume/Partition might need to be reformatted when it becomes full or when you want the file system on it changed.
If a volume is formatted with backward compatibility enabled then it can also function as an extended partition and will have no drive letter assigned to its own but instead has one of the other partitions in front of it (CD Drive, DVD Drive, etc) which are actually volumes themselves.
Newer Windows versions support booting from a GPT disk that contains both primary and logical volumes at the same time; this isn’t possible for MBR disks though unless they’re using software RAID.
