> This is a non-issue if your files are stored in a partition separate from your OS, and is infeasible otherwise.

That is one of the biggest ifs of 2026. I don't think any major PC laptop vendor has ever sold consumer laptops with anything but one-big-partition layout. For the average user, their files are not stored in any partition, they are stored "right there on my desktop, with a separate folder for photos and bills"

EFI/ESP and a restore partition have been standard or at least common for a decade. Restore partition might be big enough to install to… my Linux system partition is only 30GB.

But yes, been using a /data partition since it was called D:\ under DOS.