# Why I use the entire disk but still got two unused partions?



## yxy (Apr 24, 2012)

Hi, I am new to *F*reeBSD, I'm curious about this question. 

When I parti*ti*on my disk using fdisk (in sysinstall) I choose to use the entire disk, but still got two other unused parti*ti*ons (see the attachment).

Can someone explain this to me, or give me some hints to google. I t*ri*ed to google it , but don't known how to describe it  

Thanks in advance!


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## jem (Apr 24, 2012)

Those aren't actually partitions.  They're just areas of unused space before and after your single FreeBSD partition.

FreeBSD adheres to the original rules of the MBR partitioning scheme and aligns partitions to cylinders, a now largely meaningless concept of disk geometry.  This results in the small amounts of unused space.

It's strange that FreeBSD still does this even though MBR's inventors, Microsoft, don't even follow those rules any more.  They now start the primary MBR partition of a hard disk at sector 2048 (1MB) regardless of the disk geometry.


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## yxy (Apr 24, 2012)

I see. 

Thank you jem


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