When bringing home a PC or Mac, you are getting a single hard disk or startup drive. While this arrangement is fine for most users, you might want to split the disk into more than one partition. Splitting the disk would mean you can treat each partition as a separate drive. For example, you can use one of the drives to store your sensitive files, while the other can store your regular files. Each partition will appear on your desktop as a separate disk. You can delete the partition if you don’t require the partition anymore.

Are you wondering how to delete a partition Mac? First, you need to restart your Mac and boot into the primary partition that you wish to keep. Then, open Disk Utilities from Applications to merge the partitions. Next, pick the hard drive partition you don’t need and click Erase. Finally, click Confirm in the dialog window and click Done.

As for deleting partitions in Windows, you can use several tools like PowerShell, Disk Management, and Command Prompt.

So, now that you know you can delete the hard drive partitions whenever you want, consider why partitioning isn’t a bad idea.

To run different OS on one computer

Do you want to run different operating systems on your device? Then, it is possible to run several OS without the hassle of separating the hard drive into partitions.

When trying to run different operating systems, having a partitioned hard drive is mandatory because every OS demands an independent partition. Furthermore, the different partitions will help store different operating systems’ files and folders. So, you can easily access those files without bothering the other operating system on your computer.

Running different operating systems at once won’t be easy if you don’t partition the hard drive. It might lead to misconfigurations, and the system might crash.

To organize and manage your data

When you partition your hard drive, you will get different logical drives. Therefore, it will help you better manage and organize your data on every partition. As a result, the management of data will be much more precise. For example, you can use one partitioned hard drive for your OS, one for your business data, one for your personal data, and another for keeping data backup. Therefore, all the data will be available in the different disk spaces, and you will know exactly how to access them.

To make data backups more convenient

Data backup is crucial and is one of the best ways to protect your sensitive data. To back up your data much more efficiently, you need to partition your hard drive. Then, it will become easier to back up your data in all the partitions separately. You don’t have to back up your whole disk. This is also true when it comes to restoring data from backups.

To decrease the threat of data loss

There are many different threats around your system, such as hardware failure, virus infections, and software malfunctions. These threats potentially harm your data and can result in data loss or system failure. Hence, it is better to have a minimum of two partitions on your computer so one can store your personal data and the other can store the OS files. So, if you need to reinstall the operating system, you know your personal data is unharmed.

To repair disk problems easily

There might be instances where your startup disk has developed errors, and you might need to run a repair program, such as Disk Utility (for Mac), to fix them. When running the repair program, you might need to run it using another volume, like an external hard drive. However, if your hard disk is partitioned, you will not need any external media. You can fix the disk giving problem without having any second thoughts.

To enhance the performance of the hard drive

When you are trying to access your data, the drive head will move around to write or read data. Therefore, the hard disk will work better when there are small chunks of data than a lot of data on one hard drive. If you store your data on a differently partitioned drive, you can improve the performance of the disk.

To encrypt sensitive files

Data security is mandatory, and to maintain that, people opt to encrypt their hard drives. Generally, the encryption is whole-drive encryption. But if you want only to encrypt sensitive files, you can separate the partitions and select the partitions you wish to encrypt. Then, you will get more options.

The bottom line

Partitioning the hard drive of your computer offers better data security, encrypts data, enhances hard disk performance, and eases data backup and restoration. So, have you partitioned your hard drive yet?