Partition

A partition is a section of a hard drive. Hence the name partition. When you format a hard drive, you can usually choose the number of partitions you want. The computer will recognize each partition as a separate drive, and they will show up as different drives under "My Computer" (in Windows) or on the desktop (on Macs). Great, so why would you want to create multiple partitions? Well, there are two main reasons. One is that you want to have multiple operating systems on your computer. Typically, operating systems need to be installed on their own partition in order to work. The other reason is that multiple partitions can improve the efficiency of your hard drive. On larger drives, the cluster, or block sizes (the minimum amount of space a file can take up), are also very large, which can result in a waste of disk space. So multiple partitions can actually give you more space. Yep, more room for all those MP3s. It should be noted that the word partition can also be used as a verb, meaning to create multiple partitions. Of course, that's pretty obvious.