How to Partition SSD with Safe and Easy Methods

Shall I Partition My SSD or Not? Help!

SSD is short for "solid-state drive." It uses flash memory to deliver vastly superior performance and durability. SSDs are faster and more durable than HDDs. Thus many people are using SSDs. Nowadays, the capacity of SSD is much larger and many users want to know whether they should partition their SSDs. Here's an example:

"Recently, I bought a Kingston 1TB SSD. And I want to replace the old HDD with it. I was thinking about partitioning it into two partitions, one with about 250GB (250GB with windows boot partition and all) and then use the rest for gaming. Shall I partition my SSD? How to do it?"

SSD partitioning has many advantages, so I recommend you to do it especially when you want to make additional partitions:

• SSD partitioning allows you to have multiple operating systems on one computer.

It is helpful if you want to run two versions of Windows, or Windows and Linux.

• SSD partitioning enables you to separate system and data.

You can install Windows and your various programs on the system partition and store your data such as games, documents, pictures, music, and video files to a new partition. It is the best way to avoid unexpected data loss disaster caused by system problems. 

For most users, SSD partitioning is not an easy task. It’s not like making folders. You know, creating and resizing partitions is a hassle. Here are two ways to partition SSD - using partition software or using Disk Management.

Method 1: Partition SSD with EaseUS Partition Tool 

The easiest way to partition SSD is by using third-party software. EaseUS partition tool is my suggestion. This software can create disk partitions and manage data storage space easily. In addition to disk partitioning, it has many other useful features:

• Migrate OS to SSD/HDD
• Convert Disk/Partitions
• Format a Hard Drive/Partition
• Merge partitions
• Recover lost partitions

...

With this tool, you can format SSD to the various file system. Partition SSD to multiple partitions with 4K alignment, clone SSD, merge SSD partitions, etc.  Now you can directly download EaseUS Partition Master and follow the steps to partition it.

 

Step 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master

Step 2: Partition Hard Drive

Shrink partition:

1. Right-click on a partition that you want to shrink and select "Resize/Move".

2. Drag the end of the partition rightward or leftward or adjust the space by clicking the "Partition size" column. Click "OK" to continue.

Extend partition:

1. To extend partition, you need to leave unallocated space next to the target partition. If not, shrink a partition as mentioned above to leave enough unallocated space behind the target partition first.

2. Then right-click on the target partition and select "Resize/Move".

3. Drag the target partition handle into the unallocated space to extend partition. Click "OK" to continue.

Create partition:

1. On the main window, right-click on the unallocated space on your hard drive or external storage device and select "Create".

2. Set the partition size, partition label, drive letter, file system, etc. for the new partition and click "OK" to continue.

Delete partition:

1. On the main window, right-click on the hard drive partition which you want to delete and select "Delete".

2. Click "OK" to confirm.

Change partition drive letter:

1. Right-click the partition, and choose "Change Drive Letter".

2. Click the down arrow, choose a drive letter for the partition, then click "OK".

Step 3: Execute operations

Click the "Execute Operation" button at the top corner and keep all changes by clicking "Apply".

In order to ensure the best performance of an SSD, EaseUS Partition Master provides the 4K alignment function to align the 4K sectors on your SSD. You can optimize your SSD with this feature.

Step 1: EaseUS Partition Master again.

Step 2: Select the SSD disk that you want to align, right-click it and choose "4K Alignment".

Step 3: Click the "Execute Operation" button at the top-left corner and click "Apply".  Then, the SSD drive partitions are all 4K aligned with all sectors on it.

Method 2: Partition SSD with Disk Management 

This method is used to shrink the existing partition and then use the unallocated space to create a partition. If the SSD hasn’t been partitioned, you can create partitions on it directly. 

Step 1: At the start, type Disk Management and you will see a list of connected hard drives.

Step 2: Right-click one SSD partition and select "Shrink Volume". Enter the amount of space you want to shrink then click on the "Shrink" button. (This would create unallocated space.)

Step 3: Right-click on the unallocated space and select "New Simple Volume".

Step 4: Enter the New Simple Volume Wizard interface by clicking "Next" and specify a volume size. The size is the new SSD partition size.

Step 5: Assign Drive Letter or Path, then format the partition to the default file system NTFS. Click "Finish" to complete creating a new partition in Windows 10.