Quickly Partition an External Hard Drive with Free Partition Assistant

What is External Hard Drive?

Every computer needs at least one hard drive to store its operating system, programs and user information. This drive is usually internal; however, as computer systems have developed and different needs, the external hard drive has become extremely popular. It allows the user to store important information separated from the main internal hard drive, which could avoid being compromised by online or offline activities. Another advantage of the external hard drive is that it is portable and is operated on a plug-and-play basis.

Why Partition an External Hard Disk Drive?

There are several reasons to explain the benefits of partitioning an external hard drive:

• Firstly, if you have partitioned your external hard drive and put your different kinds of data into different partitions, when one kind of data stored in one partition is corrupted or get deleted accidentally, the data in other partitions won't be affected. You will only need to recover the problem partition, which is faster than recovering the entire hard disk.

• Secondly, encryption is one of the fundamental methods of protecting critical data from theft or corruption, but it slows down the performance of your computer. You can create different partitions with free disk partitioning software - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition, then you can just encrypt those partitions that need protection in the external hard drive, and other parts of your system will run unencrypted. As a result, it will help your computer run faster.

• Thirdly, external hard drive partitioning lets your computer finds files and data quicker as it only needs to search one partition, not the whole external hard drive, making it easier for you to categorize files and folders in partitions according to logical schemes. AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you divide partitions for different purposes, thus help you increase your productivity.

How to Partition an External Hard Drive without Data Loss?

Firstly, to partition your external hard drive with AOMEI Partition Assistant, you need to insert an external hard drive, and then launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

Situation 1: There is already some unallocated space on your external hard disk drive.

In this case, it is pretty easy to solve this problem. Right click the unallocated space and create one or more new partitions.

Situation 2: Your external hard drive doesn't have any unallocated disk space.

As is showing in the picture below, there is only one partition in disk 2. To generate more partitions, right click partition F, a smaller window pops up with many choices. In fact, both Split partition and Create Partition can reach the goal. Here click Create Partition.

A new window comes out, with a slider bar in the middle. Drag the bar rightwards or leftwards to commit the sizes of new partitions. Then click OK.

Then you will see the disk 2 is partitioned into to two partitions. Finally, clickApply to commit the operation.

If you think two partitions are not enough and still want more, right click a partition that has enough free space. There are three ways for you to create more partitions.

Resize a partition: Click Resize Partition. Drag the slider bar leftwards in the new window to form an unallocated space, and then create a partition.

Split partition into two: Click Split Partition. In the new window, specify the size of new partition and click OK. Do not forget to click Apply in the end.

Create one or more new partitions:This way is extremely similar with Split Partition. And the procedures have been explained in the previous content.

Attention: please remember to click "Apply", that is a necessary step, there will popup a dialog box, you need to click "Proceed" to apply the operation.

Ok, under the help of Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant, you will be able to partition an external hard drive perfectly. In addition, the data will be kept completely for you, so you could set your heart rest when you use it. You will find it is really safe and simple to partition external your hard drive with the AOMEI Partition Assistant after your first-hand experience.

Download Partition Assistant Standard Edition (FREEWARE)