Partitioning - ArchWiki

# Partitioning

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- File systems
- fdisk
- gdisk
- parted
- fstab
- LVM
- Swap
- Arch boot process
- Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

Partitioning a hard drive divides the available space into sections that can be accessed independently. An entire drive may be allocated to a single partition, or multiple ones for cases such as dual-booting, maintaining a swap partition, or to logically separate data such as audio and video files.

The required information is stored in a partition table scheme such as MBR or GPT.

Partition tables are created and modified using one of many partitioning tools which must be compatible to the chosen scheme of partitioning table. Available tools include fdisk and parted.

Once created, a partition must be formatted with an appropriate file system before files can be written to it.

## Partition table

Tip: To print/list existing tables (of a specific device), run `parted /dev/sda print` or `fdisk -l /dev/sda`, where `/dev/sda` is a device name.

There are two main types of partition table available: Master Boot Record (MBR), and GUID Partition Table (GPT). These are described below along with a discussion on how to choose between the two. A third, less common alternative is using a partitionless disk, which is also discussed.

### Master Boot Record

The Master Boot Record (MBR) is the first 512 bytes of a storage device. It contains an operating system bootloader and the storage device's partition table. It plays an important role in the boot process under BIOS systems. See Wikipedia:Master boot record#Disk partitioning for the MBR structure.

Note:

- The MBR is not located in a partition; it is located at the first sector of the device (physical offset 0), preceding the first partition.
- The boot sector present on a partitionless device or within an individual partition is called a volume boot record (VBR) instead.

#### Master Boot Record (partition table)

In the MBR partition table (also known as DOS or MS-DOS partition table) there are 3 types of partitions:

- Primary
- Extended
  - Logical

Primary partitions can be bootable and are limited to four partitions per disk or RAID volume. If the MBR partition table requires more than four partitions, then one of the primary partitions needs to be replaced by an extended partition containing logical partitions within it.

Extended partitions can be thought of as containers for logical partitions. A hard disk can contain no more than one extended partition. The extended partition is also counted as a primary partition so if the disk has an extended partition, only three additional primary partitions are possible (i.e. three primary partitions and one extended partition). The number of logical partitions residing in an extended partition is unlimited. A system that dual boots with Windows will require for Windows to reside in a primary partition.

The customary numbering scheme is to create primary partitions sda1 through sda3 followed by an extended partition sda4. The logical partitions on sda4 are numbered sda5, sda6, etc.

#### Master Boot Record (bootstrap code)

The first 440 bytes of MBR are the bootstrap code area. On BIOS systems it usually contains the first stage of the boot loader. The bootstrap code can be backed up, restored from backup or erased using dd.

### GUID Partition Table

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a partitioning scheme that is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface specification; it uses globally unique identifiers (GUIDs), or UUIDs in the Linux world, to define partitions and partition types. It is designed to succeed the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme method.

At the start of a GUID Partition Table disk there is a protective Master Boot Record (PMBR) to protect against GPT-unaware software. This protective MBR just like a real MBR has a bootstrap code area which can be used for BIOS/GPT booting with boot loaders that support it.

### Choosing between GPT and MBR

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is an alternative, contemporary, partitioning style; it is intended to replace the old Master Boot Record (MBR) system. GPT has several advantages over MBR which has quirks dating back to MS-DOS times. With the recent developments to the formatting tools, it is equally easy to get good dependability and performance for GPT or MBR.

Note: For GRUB to boot from a GPT-partitioned disk on a BIOS-based system, a BIOS boot partition is required.

Some points to consider when choosing:

- To dual-boot with Windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit) using Legacy BIOS, the MBR scheme is required.
- To dual-boot Windows 64-bit using UEFI mode instead of BIOS, the GPT scheme is required.
- If you are installing on older hardware, especially on old laptops, consider choosing MBR because its BIOS might not support GPT.
- If you are partitioning a disk of 2 TiB or larger, you need to use GPT.
- It is recommended to always use GPT for UEFI boot, as some UEFI implementations do not support booting to the MBR while in UEFI mode.
- If none of the above apply, choose freely between GPT and MBR. Since GPT is more modern, it is recommended in this case.

Some advantages of GPT over MBR are:

- Provides a unique disk GUID and unique partition GUID (`PARTUUID`) for each partition - A good filesystem-independent way of referencing partitions and disks.
- Provides a filesystem-independent partition name (`PARTLABEL`).
- Arbitrary number of partitions - depends on space allocated for the partition table - No need for extended and logical partitions. By default the GPT table contains space for defining 128 partitions. However if you want to define more partitions, you can allocate more space to the partition table (currently only gdisk is known to support this feature).
- Uses 64-bit LBA for storing Sector numbers - maximum addressable disk size is 2 ZiB. MBR is limited to addressing 2 TiB of space per drive.
- Stores a backup header and partition table at the end of the disk that aids in recovery in case the primary ones are damaged.
- CRC32 checksums to detect errors and corruption of the header and partition table.

The section on #Partitioning tools contains a table indicating which tools are available for creating and modifying GPT and MBR tables.

### Partitionless disk

Partitionless disk a.k.a. superfloppy refers to a storage device without a partition table, having one file system occupying the whole storage device. The boot sector present on a partitionless device is called a volume boot record (VBR).

#### Btrfs partitioning

Btrfs can occupy an entire data storage device and replace the MBR or GPT partitioning schemes. See the Btrfs#Partitionless Btrfs disk instructions for details.

### Backup

See fdisk#Backup and restore partition table or gdisk#Backup and restore partition table.

### Recover

It may be possible to recover a destroyed MBR partition table with gpart. See gpart(8) for instructions.

For GPT it is possible to restore the primary GPT header (located at the start of the disk) from the secondary GPT header (located at the end of the disk) or vice versa. See gdisk#Recover GPT header.

Another option is TestDisk, which supports recovering lost partitions on both MBR and GPT.

## Partition scheme

There are no strict rules for partitioning a hard drive, although one may follow the general guidance given below. A disk partitioning scheme is determined by various issues such as desired flexibility, speed, security, as well as the limitations imposed by available disk space. It is essentially personal preference. If you would like to dual boot Arch Linux and a Windows operating system please see Dual boot with Windows.

Note:

- UEFI systems require an EFI system partition.
- BIOS systems that are partitioned with GPT require a BIOS boot partition if GRUB is used as the bootloader.

Tip: If using Btrfs, subvolumes can be used to imitate partitions. See the Btrfs#Mounting subvolumes section.

### Single root partition

This scheme is the simplest and should be enough for most use cases. A swapfile can be created and easily resized as needed. It usually makes sense to start by considering a single `/` partition and then separate out others based on specific use cases like RAID, encryption, a shared media partition, etc.

### Discrete partitions

Separating out a path as a partition allows for the choice of a different filesystem and mount options. In some cases like a media partition, they can also be shared between operating systems.

Below are some example layouts that can be used when partitioning, and the following subsections detail a few of the directories which can be placed on their own separate partition and then mounted at mount points under `/`. See file-hierarchy(7) for a full description of the contents of these directories.

#### /

The root directory is the top of the hierarchy, the point where the primary filesystem is mounted and from which all other filesystems stem. All files and directories appear under the root directory `/`, even if they are stored on different physical devices. The contents of the root filesystem must be adequate to boot, restore, recover, and/or repair the system. Therefore, certain directories under `/` are not candidates for separate partitions.

The `/` partition or root partition is necessary and it is the most important. The other partitions can be replaced by it.

Warning: Directories essential for booting (except for `/boot`) must be on the same partition as `/` or mounted in early userspace by the initramfs. These essential directories are: `/etc` and `/usr` [1].

`/` traditionally contains the `/usr` directory, which can grow significantly depending upon how much software is installed. 15–20 GiB should be sufficient for most users with modern hard disks. If you plan to store a swap file here, you might need a larger partition size.

#### /boot

The `/boot` directory contains the kernel and ramdisk images as well as the bootloader configuration file and bootloader stages. It also stores data that is used before the kernel begins executing user-space programs. `/boot` is not required for normal system operation, but only during boot and kernel upgrades (when regenerating the initial ramdisk).

Note:

- A separate `/boot` partition is only needed if your boot loader cannot access your root filesystem. For example, if the boot loader does not have a filesystem driver for it, or if `/` is on software RAID, a encrypted volume or a LVM volume.
- If booting using UEFI boot loaders that do not have drivers for other file systems it is recommended to mount EFI system partition to `/boot`. See EFI system partition#Mount the partition for more information.

A suggested size for `/boot` is 200 MiB unless you are using EFI system partition as `/boot`, in which case 550 MiB is recommended.

#### /home

The `/home` directory contains user-specific configuration files, caches, application data and media files.

Separating out `/home` allows `/` to be re-partitioned separately, but note that you can still reinstall Arch with `/home` untouched even if it is not separate—the other top-level directories just need to be removed, and then pacstrap can be run.

You should not share home directories between users on different distributions, because they use incompatible software versions and patches. Instead, consider sharing a media partition or at least using different home directories on the same `/home` partition. The size of this partition varies.

#### /var

The `/var` directory stores variable data such as spool directories and files, administrative and logging data, pacman's cache, the ABS tree, etc. It is used, for example, for caching and logging, and hence frequently read or written. Keeping it in a separate partition avoids running out of disk space due to flunky logs, etc.

It exists to make it possible to mount `/usr` as read-only. Everything that historically went into `/usr` that is written to during system operation (as opposed to installation and software maintenance) must reside under `/var`.

Note: `/var` contains many small files. The choice of file system type should consider this fact if a separate partition is used.

`/var` will contain, among other data, the ABS tree and the pacman cache. Retaining these packages is helpful in case a package upgrade causes instability, requiring a downgrade to an older, archived package. The pacman cache in particular will grow as the system is expanded and updated, but it can be safely cleared if space becomes an issue. 8–12 GiB on a desktop system should be sufficient for `/var`, depending on how much software will be installed.

#### /data

One can consider mounting a "data" partition to cover various files to be shared by all users. Using the `/home` partition for this purpose is fine as well. The size of this partition varies.

#### Swap

A swap partition provides memory that can be used as virtual RAM. A swap file should be considered too, as they do not have any performance overhead compared to a partition but are much easier to resize as needed. A swap partition can potentially be shared between operating systems, but not if hibernation is used.

Historically, the general rule for swap partition size was to allocate twice the amount of physical RAM. As computers have gained ever larger memory capacities, this rule is outdated. For example, on average desktop machines with up to 512 MiB RAM, the 2× rule is usually adequate; if a sufficient amount of RAM (more than 1024 MiB) is available, it may be possible to have a smaller swap partition.

To use hibernation (a.k.a suspend to disk) it is advised to create the swap partition at the size of RAM. Although the kernel will try to compress the suspend-to-disk image to fit the swap space there is no guarantee it will succeed if the used swap space is significantly smaller than RAM. See Power management/Suspend and hibernate#Hibernation for more information.

### Example layouts

This article or section needs expansion.

Reason: Improve current examples. (Discuss in Talk:Partitioning#Table draft 2)
Note: UEFI/GPT does not have a "boot" flag, booting relies on boot entries in NVRAM. Parted and its front-ends use a `boot` flag on GPT to indicate an EFI system partition.

#### UEFI/GPT example layout

Mount point | Partition | Partition type GUID | Partition attributes | Suggested size
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`/boot` or `/efi` | `/dev/sda1` | `C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B`: EFI system partition |  | 550 MiB
`/` | `/dev/sda2` | `4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709`: Linux x86-64 root (/) |  | 23 - 32 GiB
`[SWAP]` | `/dev/sda3` | `0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F`: Linux swap |  | More than 512 MiB
`/home` | `/dev/sda4` | `933AC7E1-2EB4-4F13-B844-0E14E2AEF915`: Linux /home |  | Remainder of the device

#### BIOS/MBR example layout

Mount point | Partition | Partition type ID | Boot flag | Suggested size
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`/` | `/dev/sda1` | `83`: Linux | Yes | 23 - 32 GiB
`[SWAP]` | `/dev/sda2` | `82`: Linux swap | No | More than 512 MiB
`/home` | `/dev/sda3` | `83`: Linux | No | Remainder of the device

#### BIOS/GPT example layout

Mount point | Partition | Partition type GUID | Partition attributes | Suggested size
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
None | `/dev/sda1` | `21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649`: BIOS boot partition |  | 1 MiB
`/` | `/dev/sda2` | `4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709`: Linux x86-64 root (/) | `2`: Legacy BIOS bootable | 23 - 32 GiB
`[SWAP]` | `/dev/sda3` | `0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F`: Linux swap |  | More than 512 MiB
`/home` | `/dev/sda4` | `933AC7E1-2EB4-4F13-B844-0E14E2AEF915`: Linux /home |  | Remainder of the device

## Partitioning tools

The following programs are used to create and/or manipulate device partition tables and partitions. See the linked articles for the exact commands to be used.

This table will help you to choose utility for your needs:

| MBR | GPT
--- | --- | ---
Dialog | fdisk parted | fdisk gdisk parted
Pseudo-graphics | cfdisk | cfdisk cgdisk
Non-interactive | sfdisk parted | sfdisk sgdisk parted
Graphical | GParted gnome-disk-utility partitionmanager | GParted gnome-disk-utility partitionmanager

Warning: To partition devices, use a partitioning tool compatible to the chosen type of partition table. Incompatible tools may result in the destruction of that table, along with existing partitions or data.

### fdisk

fdisk and its related utilities are described in the fdisk article.

- fdisk (util-linux)
  - fdisk(8) – Dialog-driven program for creation and manipulation of partition tables.
  - cfdisk(8) – Curses-based variant of fdisk.
  - sfdisk(8) – Scriptable variant of fdisk.

### GPT fdisk

gdisk and its related utilities are described in the gdisk article.

- GPT fdisk (gptfdisk)
  - gdisk(8) – Interactive GUID partition table (GPT) manipulator.
  - cgdisk(8) – Curses-based variant of gdisk.
  - sgdisk(8) – Scriptable variant of gdisk.

### GNU Parted

These group of tools are described in the GNU Parted article.

- GNU Parted — Terminal partitioning tool.

  https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html || parted

- GNOME Disks — Disk management utility for GNOME.

  https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Disks || gnome-disk-utility

- GParted — GTK+ partition editor for graphically managing your disk partitions.

  https://gparted.sourceforge.io/ || gparted

- KDE Partition Manager — Utility program for KDE to manage the disk devices, partitions and file systems.

  https://www.kde.org/applications/system/kdepartitionmanager/ || partitionmanager

## Partition alignment

fdisk, gdisk and parted handle alignment automatically. See GNU Parted#Check alignment if you want to verify your alignment after partitioning.

For certain drives Advanced Format might be able to provide a better-performing alignment.

## Tips and tricks

### Converting MBR to GPT

See gdisk#Convert between MBR and GPT.

### GPT Kernel Support

The `CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION` option in the kernel config enables GPT support in the kernel (despite the name, EFI PARTITION). This option must be built in the kernel and not compiled as a loadable module. This option is required even if GPT disks are used only for data storage and not for booting. This option is enabled by default in all Arch's officially supported kernels. In case of a custom kernel, enable this option by doing `CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION=y`.

## See also

- Wikipedia:Disk partitioning
- Wikipedia:Binary prefix
- Understanding Disk Drive Terminology
- What is a Master Boot Record (MBR)?
- Rod Smith's page on What's a GPT? and Booting OSes from GPT
- Make the most of large drives with GPT and Linux - IBM Developer Works
- Microsoft's Windows and GPT FAQ
- Partition Alignment (with examples)

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