Codymack backs up to an external hard drive. Although it's quite a large drive, it's full. Over time, a backup can require a huge amount of drive space. Part of the problem is. An external hard drive can store much larger data than a USB flash drive. It helps a lot if you are found of videos or audios, whichtake up a large amount of disk space. In addition, you can use it to store lots of photos, entire programs, and more on it. It is a safe Backup Device.
Updated on November 6th, 2020
External Hard Disk Space Windows 10
How to remove / delete partition from externalhard drive? In this tutorial, you can learn three methods to remove partitionsfrom external HDD in Windows 10/8/7. Fl 12 vs 20.
A partition on an external hard drive can bedeleted or removed as long as it is not currently in use. For instance, ifoperating system is installed on the partition you want to delete and thesystem is running, you cannot delete it. While in most cases, external harddrive is mainly used as secondary disk for data storage, thus you can easilydelete partitions when necessary.
'I just bought a 1TB external hard drive which comes with a small partition of 300MB which is shown as EFI partition and a large partition with rest capacity in Windows Disk Management. I want to delete the small partition and add the space to that large partition, so that I can make use of the entire disk space. When I right-click on the small partition in Disk Management, the Delete option is greyed out. Does that mean this partition cannot be deleted? Is there any possible method to remove the partition from external HDD or combine it to the other partition? I'm using laptop with Windows 10 Home installed. Thanks in advance.'
Disk partitions works as data containers whichstores various files, installs operating system or programs or keeps backups.As time goes by, the amount of data on external hard drive keeps increasing andchanging. Partition deletion removes the partition as well as files in thevolume. Since external disk may keeps important data for you, why do you stillneed to remove or delete partitions? Here are some common reasons of deleting apartition.
- You want to reduce the number of partitions onthe disk. Your disk may not be partition properly, for example, there might betoo many partitions on the disk. Thus, deleting partition can help manage datain a simpler way.
- To gain unallocated free disk space. Once apartition gets deleted, disk space taken by the volume will turn to unallocatedor free. Free disk space can be added to current partition or create a newvolume.
- In order to repartition external disk. Deletingall partitions on the disk helps to get free space, after which you can createnew partitions based on your requirements.
- To free up disk space. Some users want todelete OEM partition, or recovery partition to free up disk space, althoughsuch partitions take very little space.
Note: Once a partition gets deleted, files and folders on the volume also get deleted. Remember to backup any data you want to keep before deleting any volume.
Disk Management is provided by Windowsoperating system for the purpose of performing basic disk management operations,such as delete partition, format partition, create partition, shrink volume,etc. Let's have a look at how to remove partition on external hard drive usingWindows 10 Disk Management.
Step 1: Launch Disk Management.
In Windows 10, you can easily open DiskManagement console by right-clicking Startbutton and choose Disk Managementoption from the start menu.
Step 2: In Disk Management, locate the external harddisk and the partition you want to remove. Right-click on the partition andselect Delete Volume from contextmenu.
Step 3: On the Delete simple volume window, click Yes button and the partition will bedeleted right away.
DiskGenius is free disk partition software andit provides complete functions to manage partition and disk space. With thisfreeware, you can create, delete, format, hide, resize, extent, shrink, split,clone, image, wipe partition, convert disk between GPT and MBR, manage virtualdisk, etc. It supports NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4 file system aswell as HDD, external HDD, SSD, virtual disk, SD card, USB flash drive, etc. Todelete partition on external disk with DiskGenius:
Step 1 Http aka ms xboxsetup lets get started. : Connect your external hard drive to computerand launch DiskGenius. Then you can clearly view the disk and its partitions inthe software.
Step 2: Select the partition to be deleted and click Delete button from toolbar; orright-click on the partition and choose DeleteCurrent Partition from context menu.
Step 3: Click Yesbutton on the pop-up message box.
Diskpart commands provides many usefulfunctions to help us manage disk and partitions. Here we can use commands todelete partition on external hard disk. This guide is a little complicated thanprevious two methods.
Step 1: Launch Command Prompt in Windows 10.
Right-click on start menu and choose Command Promptfrom the start menu.
Step 2: In Command Prompt, type diskpart and press Enter key.
Step 3: Type following command on after another andpress Enter after each command.
- List volume (This command lists all partitions on your computer)
- Select volume # (# represents the partition that needs to be deleted)
- Delete volume (This command deletes the selected partition)
Hard Disk Space Windows 10
Who created five nights at freddys. This pose provides 3 methods to remove/deletepartition on external hard drive in Windows 10/8/7. These guides also apply todeleting partition from USB flash drive, hard drive, SD card, SSD and more. Nowyou can easily remove partitions when necessary. DiskGenius is free diskpartition software and it helps manage disk space and improves performance.
Prepare your drive
External Hard Disk Space Vs
You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, you can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups. Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.
To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.
Move your Photos library to an external storage device
- Quit Photos.
- In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
- In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
- Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click the triangle button , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click the lock button to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.*
- After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
- If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.
Delete original library to save space
After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.
In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.
Open another Photos library
If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:
- Quit Photos.
- Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
- Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.
Photos uses this library until you open a different one.
Learn more
If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.
* If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.
