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Is it advisable to leave some of the hard disk space unallocated?
Is it advisable to leave some of the hard disk space, say 1 GB or 2GB or ...... unallocated. Is there any benefit or harm.
Is it advisable to leave some of the hard disk space, say 1 GB or 2GB or ...... unallocated. Is there any benefit or harm.
I can't think of either a benefit or harm, unless your system partition is really short on free space.
Generally not but some file systems need it. For example OSX expects 128MB unallocated after all HFS partitions like this:
There is a good explanation of partitioning here http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/advice.html
In a normal Windows system for home use I cannot think of a reason to leave unallocated space.
Especially if it's an SSD drive where you need to make maximum use of all the space.
There is no reason to do so, no benefit whatsoever. No harm to do it but it is not a thing one should even consider.
Actually, in an SSD having some unallocated space can have some benefits. In fact most SSD's already have built-in unallocated space (OP – over provisioning). This allows the the SSD's internal systems greater efficiency in the Garbage Collection and trimming process. For example Samsung drives recommend a 10% over provisioning but allow users to exceed this limit. Furthermore, any time an SSD is filled to over 80% capacity you will see decrease in efficiency and speed. In traditional HD drives, unallocated space really serves no function.
Thanks to all for their valuable information. As I do not have shortage of space and if there is no benefit and no harm that I would like to keep some GB unallocated. May be in future some software may need free space.