Best to Use Partitions or Folders for backups?

I have a new 2TB USB external hard drive that I want to use to store system images and data file backups, as follows:

(1) Use Acronis 2016 to create system image of primary drive (an SSD)

(2) Use Macrium Reflect to create system image of primary drive

(3) Use SyncToy to backup selected data files


My question is this.......Given the above three tasks, should I create three partitions on my new drive or create three folders on a singular partition?

Thanks in advance.....

I would stick to creating a good folder structure to accomodate your backups, and just use a single partition spanning the entire disk. Reasons for this are simple:

- Partitions are difficult to size correctly, and is harder to predict how much you'll need in the future. And if a resize becomes neccesary, resizing partitions is somewhat more complicated. With folders you always have the whole free disk space available.
- Folders can be aranges hierarchically as much as you want, if you want more organitation. Partitions only allow a flat structure.
- If in the future you need more that "3 tasks", or less, or something different, creating folders is straighforward, but partitions comes with more difficulty in resizing.

Just curious, aren't (1) and (2) the same performed with different programs?

Thanks to both of you. That was my thinking also, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

And yes, (1) and (2) are the same, just using different programs.