User's Manual

104 Appendix E:An Introduction to Disk Partitions
drives with a greater capacity, but the overhead imposed by the filesystem to track files became ex-
cessive.
The solution to this problem was to divide disks into partitions. Each partition can be accessed as if
it was a separate disk. This is done through the addition of a partition table.
Note
While the diagrams in this chapter show the partition table as being separate
from the actual disk drive, this is not entirely accurate. In reality, the partition
table is stored at the very start of the disk, before any filesystem or user data.
But for clarity, we will keep it separate in our diagrams.
Figure E–5 Disk Drive with Partition Table
As Figure E–5, Disk Drive with Partition Table shows, the partition table is divided into four sections.
Each section can hold the information necessary to define a single partition, meaning that the partition
table can define no more than four partitions.
Each partition table entry contains several important characteristics of the partition:
• The points on the disk where the partition starts and ends