Primary vs Logical Partitions - data safety

[czajunia]

Hi,

Are there any differences between primary and logical partitions from data safety point of view? What would be better - creating 4 primary partitions or one primary and one extended with 3 logical partitions inside the extended one? (I need one primary to boot my OS.)

I read somewhere on the net that if anything goes wrong with one of the drives on the extended partition everything gets messed up. Is that correct or are the partitions equal considering data safety and I shouldn't worry about primary vs logical question?

Thank's a lot!

 

[degibson]

Depending on the failure, its possible that other partitions could be affected, regardless of the type.

 

[Nothinman]

I read somewhere on the net that if anything goes wrong with one of the drives on the extended partition everything gets messed up. Is that correct or are the partitions equal considering data safety and I shouldn't worry about primary vs logical question?

That's not correct but primary and logical partitions aren't equal either. Logical partitions are a linked list, the current one points to the beginning of the next, so it's possible that if you have a problem with one you could lose the pointer to the next which means it and all of the following will be lost too. But that's not common scenario and since all primary partitions are stored in the MBR it's just as easy to f' up your MBR and lose them all.

 

[czajunia]

Thank's. So it means that as far as safety goes there's no real difference between primary and logical partitions - just different things that may go wrong.

I would assume that there is no differences performance wise either. Is that correct?

 

[Nothinman]

Fewer is better to reduce seeking between partitions, but otherwise the difference is minimal.

 

[pallejr]

I don't see even a minimal difference when talking about performance between primary and logical partitions. The structure is just to provide some initial information about where on the disk the partition is located