{"id":84593,"date":"2022-09-05T13:47:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T13:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/?p=84593"},"modified":"2025-12-20T10:36:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:36:04","slug":"an-introduction-to-disk-partitions-on-centos-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/an-introduction-to-disk-partitions-on-centos-7\/","title":{"rendered":"An Introduction to Disk Partitions on CentOS 7: Structure and Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are the first to install CentOS 7 on your disk or virtual machine, you need to pay attention to one crucial thing: how to best manage your disk&#8217;s partitioning (how the operating system divides the disk space).<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you have a 100 GB disk, the operating system will probably partition 50 GB for \/home (users) and about 50 GB for opt or root and boot. SMx installations in the OS are placed in \/opt by default, meaning you only have 50GB for SMx on a 100 GB disk.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never manually partitioned a disk before, don&#8217;t worry. In this article, we will help you step by step. We create a virtual machine in ESXi with eight processors, 32 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB virtual disk. I also use CentOS 7 with minimal capabilities. (Using the full install means you&#8217;ll get a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Graphical_user_interface\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GUI <\/a>that uses more resources.) You can replace VMware ESXi with other hypervisors, but at the time of writing this article, ESXi is the most widely used.<\/p>\n<p>Here, we assume that you have placed the CentOS 7 ISO file into the virtual drive of the VM or inserted the disc into the server&#8217;s CD-ROM and are booting into the CentOS 7 installer. If your disk is blank and no operating system is installed, you should see the following screen in the <a href=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/esxiargs-ransomware-security-bug-and-solutions-to-fix-it\/\">ESXi<\/a>\/vSphere console or on the monitor.<\/p>\n<p>To continue the CentOS 7 partitioning process, follow the steps below.<\/p>\n<p>1. On the page that opens for you, first select the &#8220;Installation Destination&#8221; option.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84594 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-768x577-1.png\" alt=\"On the page that opens for you, first select the &quot;Installation Destination&quot; option.\" width=\"768\" height=\"577\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-768x577-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-768x577-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>2. Select &#8220;I will configure partitioning&#8221; and click &#8220;Done&#8221;. For this example, we want to create:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>partition boot\/ with a volume of 500 MB<\/li>\n<li>swap partition (LVM) with 32 GB of space (because we have 32 GB of RAM)<\/li>\n<li>Setting the remaining space for the root\/ of LVM type<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84597 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-1-768x577-1.png\" alt=\"Select &quot;I will configure partitioning&quot; and click &quot;Done&quot;. For this example, we want to create:\" width=\"768\" height=\"577\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-1-768x577-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-1-768x577-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>3. Click the [+] button to start. Then, select &#8220;boot\/&#8221; for the &#8220;Mount Point&#8221; option. For the desired capacity, we will use 512 MB, as shown below.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84600 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-3-768x573-1.png\" alt=\"Click the [+] button to start. Then, select &quot;boot\/&quot; for the &quot;Mount Point&quot; option. For the desired capacity, we will use 512 MB, as shown below.\" width=\"768\" height=\"573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-3-768x573-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-3-768x573-1-300x224.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>4. Next, set &#8220;Device Type&#8221; to &#8220;Standard&#8221; and &#8220;File System&#8221; to &#8220;ext4&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84603 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-4-768x578-1.png\" alt=\"Next, set &quot;Device Type&quot; to &quot;Standard&quot; and &quot;File System&quot; to &quot;ext4&quot;.\" width=\"768\" height=\"578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-4-768x578-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-4-768x578-1-300x226.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>5. Then you need to create the swap partition. Click the [+] icon again. Enter the mount point &#8220;swap&#8221; and the desired capacity, which should be at least 32 GB of RAM, as shown below:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84606 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-5-768x579-1.png\" alt=\"Then you need to create the swap partition. Click the [+] icon again. Enter the mount point &quot;swap&quot; and the desired capacity, which should be at least 32 GB of RAM, as shown below:\" width=\"768\" height=\"579\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-5-768x579-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-5-768x579-1-300x226.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>6. To do this, set &#8220;Device Type&#8221; to &#8220;LVM&#8221; and &#8220;File System&#8221; to &#8220;swap.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84609 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-6-768x575-1.png\" alt=\"To do this, set &quot;Device Type&quot; to &quot;LVM&quot; and &quot;File System&quot; to &quot;swap.&quot;\" width=\"768\" height=\"575\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-6-768x575-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-6-768x575-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>7. The last step of this tutorial is to create the root partition. Click the [+] icon and select &#8220;\/&#8221; as the mount point. Set the desired capacity to &#8220;max&#8221; to use all remaining space.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84612 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-7-768x576-1.png\" alt=\"The last step of this tutorial is to create the root partition. Click the [+] icon and select &quot;\/&quot; as the mount point. Set the desired capacity to &quot;max&quot; to use all remaining space.\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-7-768x576-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-7-768x576-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>8. Finally, select LVM and ext4 for settings.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-84615 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-8-768x574-1.png\" alt=\"Finally, select LVM and ext4 for settings.\" width=\"768\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-8-768x574-1.png 768w, https:\/\/ded9.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/rtaImage-8-768x574-1-300x224.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>9. Finally, click Done and continue the installation.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>As you can see, we were able to partition our server disk easily for the CentOS 7 operating system without any problems.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ<\/h2>\n<div id=\"rank-math-rich-snippet-wrapper\"><div id=\"rank-math-faq\" class=\"rank-math-block\">\n<div class=\"rank-math-list \">\n<div id=\"faq-1\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">What are disk partitions on CentOS 7?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>Disk partitions divide a physical disk into separate sections, each used for mounting different filesystems like \/, \/home, and \/var.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-2\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">Why is partitioning important?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>Proper partitioning improves performance, isolates system and user data, and helps manage storage more safely and efficiently.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-3\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question \">How do I create partitions on CentOS 7?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer \">\n\n<p>Use tools like fdisk, parted, or the CentOS installer\u2019s partitioning interface to define size, type, and mount points for each partition.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are the first to install CentOS 7 on your disk or virtual machine, you need to pay attention to one crucial thing: how to best manage your disk&#8217;s partitioning (how the operating system divides the disk space). For example, if you have a 100 GB disk, the operating system will probably partition 50 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":84621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11516],"tags":[4897,4981],"class_list":["post-84593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centos-2","tag-centos-7","tag-disk-partitions"],"acf":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266331,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84593\/revisions\/266331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ded9.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}