Logical drive. All that a regular user needs to know

What is a logical drive? Sooner or later, all PC users are faced with this issue. Many of them do not even pay attention to the fact that the expression so familiar to the rumor, in fact, is an incomprehensible word combination for them.

So, a logical drive is a certain, predefined part of the hard disk (hard drive) used to store information. As a rule, in the system it is denoted by the letters of the Latin alphabet (B, C, D, E, and so on).

It's worth noting that logical disks are not something physical that you can touch with your hands like a hard drive, it's just a conditional logical unit that serves for user's convenience and information systematization on a PC. For example, having one physical medium, you can create several logical ones on it (for movies, for working information, for games, for a system volume).

Splitting a disk into several logical partitions has a number of undeniable advantages. Let's consider the most significant of them.

1. Convenience of using information resources and disk space for different users of one physical device. In this case, you do not have to share your "place" with others by creating a logical drive and assigning the appropriate access rights to it.
2. Data protection. Using special programs and utilities, you can protect individual logical units from changing data, from the ability to write information or read. You can also set the possibility of implementing the above actions only after entering the user's personal password.
3. Ability to install multiple operating systems. Having in its arsenal of a couple of logical volumes, you can install different operating systems. Of course, for everything to work correctly, you need to have a more or less powerful computer and put different operating systems on different disks. With the correct installation, you can choose the OS that is located on this or that logical partition, just specifying the right place when you boot the PC.
4. Less data loss. If the logical disk is corrupted, after its partitioning, only the information that was stored in this place disappears. The remaining volumes do not suffer. It is also worth mentioning that when reinstalling the OS, only those data that were in the system partition are erased, and the remaining volumes are not affected, that is, this technology allows saving user files during the installation process.
5. Defragment individual logical units. It allows you to perform the defragmentation process much more efficiently and quickly, which will not only speed up the work of the PC, but will also extend the life of the hard drive.

How to create a logical drive? Consider this process for the example of Windows 7, since this system is the most common to date among ordinary users.

Step 1. Log on to the system with administrator rights.

Step 2. Open the Control Panel. Click System and Security. Go to the Administration section.

Step 3. In the list, locate and select Computer Management. Go to the Disk Management submenu of the Storage devices section.

Step 4. Select the disk you want to partition. Right-click on it and select Compress Volume.

Step 5. In the Size field of the compressible field, specify the size of the new disk space in megabytes and click the Compress button.

Step 6. Click on the appeared area with the name "Not Distributed" and select Create a simple volume that appears when you right-click. As a result, the Volume Creation Wizard starts

Step 7. Answer the questions of the wizard (which name should be assigned to the new disk, in which file system should it be formatted) and enjoy all the advantages of the technology.

Such simple actions will lead to the partitioning of the hard drive and will greatly simplify the "life" of the ordinary user.