When you format a drive you need to know the difference between a hard disc and a hard disc partition, and therefore I will describe each:
The hard disc is the entire drive - let's say a 1Tb hard drive
A hard disc partition is a division which appears as a single drive when you are inside Windows. You could divide your 1Tb into one partition containing 150Gb containing backup and installation files, 500Gb for the operating system, program files and similar things, 50Gb for temporary files and a partition for the rest (approx. 300Gb) for documents, movies, sound files etc. Having a separate partition for temporary files can be good for two obvious reasons:
- If you use a program such as Photoshop it creates a lot of temporary files, and mixing these with your program files can cause your system to run very slowly.
- Windows stores its temporary file in one large file, and since your temporary disc can be defragmented much more quickly when it's placed on a single partition your system will be kept fully up to speed by doing this.
Formatting in Windows
Once the partitions have been created you have an option to either format in the FAT32 or NTFS formats. Choosing the NTFS system allows you much better security for your files. Furthermore, you can also allocate space much more easily using the NTFS system.
The first time you format a drive, you should avoid using the Quick Format option since you want to lay tracks appropriately. Given the fact that hard drives use magnetism for storage you want to do the best format, and you can always grab a cup of coffee or tea while it completes the formatting.
Formatting in Linux
In Linux you have different formats - Native Linux, Extended and /home for your documents and settings. When you keep the /home partition intact you can actually move between different distributions of Linux and still keep your settings intact.
Formatting is very quick under Linux, and you have the joy to know that the system is inspired by Unix - a very good system to create file rights. Furthermore you can't format without knowing the admin password, so errors are less likely.
Formatting in MacOS
Formatting is also very easy under MacOS, and can be done through the control panel. So when you buy a new external hard drive you can easily create partitions and format these without any need to reboot.
In Conclusion
Once you know the basics about drives and partitions it's very easy to format drives. It can be done very easily, and some would say almost too easily since you might make a mistake when you hit your mouse to the wrong drive on your screen.
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