Getting space by shrinking a partition (Should know)
When a partition contains extra space it can be beneficial to free up this space for use in other partitions. This section demonstrates how to get space by shrinking a partition.
Note that the resize and move functionality is a core building block of re-organizing partitions. As shrinking, moving, and growing partitions involve different considerations and levels of risk, these three actions have been separated into their own individual tasks.
Getting ready
Before before performing this task, we highly recommend that you backup your data. This recipe involves moving the end of a partition boundary which is a moderate risk activity.
When you shrink a partition, the freed up space will be available immediately to the right of the partition. If this freed up space is required in a different location on the disk, you might need to consider moving other partitions, or resizing the start or end of the extended partition. Moving or growing partitions is covered in later tasks.
Remember that to perform operations on a partition, the partition must not be mounted or otherwise active. For operations on the extended partition, none of the logical partitions can be mounted or otherwise active. You can use the Partition menu to unmount, swapoff, or deactivate partitions as needed.
How to do it...
Select a partition containing unused space.
Choose the menu option Partition | Resize/Move and a Resize/Move window is displayed.
Click on the right-hand side of the partition and drag the right-hand side to the left.
Tip
Leave at least 10 percent or more unused space in the partition because many file systems require some unused space to be able to function properly.
Click on Resize/Move to queue the shrink operation. The queued shrink operation is shown in the operations pane.
Choose the menu option Edit | Apply All Operations to apply the queued operations to disk.
Click on Apply to apply operations to disk.
Click on Close to close the apply operations to disk window.
How it works...
In the above steps, we moved the right-hand side of the partition, also known as the end of the partition. This instructs GParted to resize (shrink) the partition.
In this example, we left many options at the default values. If you wish to maintain compatibility with old operating systems, such as DOS, then you should set the Align to drop down list to the Cylinder setting. To ensure optimum space usage it is best to use the same alignment setting for all partitions on a disk device, normally MiB alignment with modern operating systems.
If you require more precise partition sizing, you can enter values or use the arrows in the New size, or Free space following spin boxes.
There's more...
If you resize a partition containing an NTFS file system, you should reboot into Windows twice. This permits Windows to perform file system consistency checks.
Moving the left-hand side of a partition
If the left-hand side of the partition, also known as the beginning of the partition, is moved, the operation is no longer simply a partition resize. Two steps are required due to the metadata contained at the beginning of the file system. One operation is needed to shrink the partition, and another to move the partition.
Moving the start of a partition involves extra considerations that will be discussed later in the Moving a partition recipe.
