Primary vs Logical partition
9,608
Today, it doesn't really matter if you use primary or extended partitions.
There have been times where /boot had to be a primary partition but this isn't true any more. Also earlier incarnations of MS Windows required that you installed Windows to a primary partition.
When I set up a new disk, I make the first partition primary and put /boot there and put the rest as logical partitions into one big extended but this is just a personal preference.
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Author by
Falmarri
Updated on September 17, 2022Comments
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Falmarri about 1 year
I know that you can only have 4 primary partitions on a hard drive. But if you're using less than 4, is there a benefit/penalty for using logical partitions?
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mouviciel about 13 yearsThe limit of 4 partitions is valid only in MBR partition scheme. There is no such limit with GPT (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table)
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Falmarri about 13 years@mouviciel: Good point
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psusi about 12 yearsSome badly behaved bioses check that a primary partition is marked active, or they refuse to boot. Otherwise, they just load and execute the boot loader in the MBR, most of which are perfectly capable of booting from a logical partition these days.
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phemmer over 9 yearsWhere do you get the idea that multiple partitions slow things down? The article you link mentions no such thing. It's also not true.