09/07/2024
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PARTITION
Partitions and volumes are terms that are often used interchangeably. Usually this doesn’t cause a problem because typically they are the same thing. There are, however, some subtle
differences, and defining the terms and understanding the differences is an important part of being a professional.
A partition is a collection of consecutive sectors within a volume, and those sectors are addressable by a single file system specific to and contained within that partition.
-A volume, by subtle contrast, is a collection of addressable sectors that are used by an operating system or an application to store data. The addressable sectors in a volume do not have to be consecutive and therein lies the difference. Rather, they need only give the appearance of being consecutive. When a volume consists of a single partition, the two are functionally the same. When
a volume spans more than one partition or drive, the difference becomes self-evident. Volumes are logical storage units that are assigned drive letters by the operating systems. Theoretically,
most operating systems can support up to 24 volumes, using the letters C through Z and reserving A and B for floppy drives. If a single physical hard drive were installed in a system,
that drive could, in theory, be partitioned into 24 volumes.