Solved 4TB hard drive, how can I format it?

[SIW2]

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Are you sure you want to have just one massive partition?

Housekeeping is laborious on a single partition of that size.

I would divide it up. Easier for organizing storing things on different partitions and takes less time to defrag or check the filesystem etc on each smaller partition. Four ( or more) partitions is easier on a disk that size.

 

[netrate]

What sizes do you suggest? I haven't backed up anything on it yet.

 

[SIW2]

It is up to you . Maybe 4 partitions roughly 1tb each.

For example if you ever need to scan for a deleted file it would take forever on a massive 4tb ish partition.

Quarter of the time on a 1tb partition, but still takes quite a while. Same for any housekeeping.

I usually keep mine under 500gb , so I would probabaly have eight partitions or so , but it depends on what you want to do.

I also usually make sure there is a bit of unallocated space at the beginning of the disk ( i.e on the left ) of about 300-500mb. Just in case it is ever needed to boot from, there is the space that can easily be made into esp partition if ever needed in future without having to mess around.

So it could be the tiny msr partition which is already there. Then 300mb ( minimum ) of unallocated space. Then 4 partitions of roughly similar size.

I dont think I have any blank disks lying around to demonstrate.

 

[MisterEd]

Housekeeping is laborious on a single partition of that size.
I would divide it up. Easier for organizing storing things on different partitions and takes less time to defrag or check the filesystem etc on each smaller partition. Four ( or more) partitions is easier on a disk that size.

I have had computers with hard drives for 30 years. Out of habit and necessity I had partitioned the drives for 25 of those years. One day somebody pointed out why that was unnecessary. Now most of my drives only have one partition. That is true even for my 5, 6, and 12TB external drives.

In some ways it is easier to manage multiple partitions but you can do the same thing with folders. The problem with multiple partitions is that eventually one or more will fill up. You are forced to either move files between partitions or use a partition manager to resize them.

I really don't care how long defragging takes because it is automatic and is done in the background.

 

[netrate]

Would I use Disk Genius to make the partitions? Or just Win Disk Management?

 

[SIW2]

Either.