Drives and Partitions on Linux
Partitions
Each device has max four primary partitions. Instead of a primary partition, you can create an extended partition. An extended partition can contain several logical partitions.
Drive Naming
Devices are named differently:
- The first Master IDE hard disk is called
hda
. - SCSI, SATA and USB are called
sd
. - Each primary partition is numbered 1 to 4.
- Each logical partition is numbered from 5 upwards.
Hence the first logical partition on the master IDE drive will be hda5
.