Partition

To divide something into parts (verb). One of the divided parts (noun). With hard disk drives it is possible to partition them so different parts of the drive’s capacity can be used for different kinds of data, or possibly for different hardware platforms. Drive partitions look like individual drives to any operating system that can “see” (recognize) them. This is often desirable with large drives because it allows data to be categorized into smaller spaces that are faster for the computer to search. In a case where a drive is partitioned to work with more than one device each device may only see its partition, and not the whole drive (unless its software allows it to see other types of data formats). RAM memory can also be partitioned.