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.

Share:
9,608

Related videos on Youtube

Falmarri
Author by

Falmarri

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

  • Falmarri
    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?

    • mouviciel
      mouviciel about 13 years
      The 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)
    • Falmarri
      Falmarri about 13 years
      @mouviciel: Good point
  • psusi
    psusi about 12 years
    Some 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.
  • phemmer
    phemmer over 9 years
    Where do you get the idea that multiple partitions slow things down? The article you link mentions no such thing. It's also not true.