Adding a new drive on a Linux database server

To use the "standard way" is the best thing to do. So go ahead and partition.

Using non-standard-ways always gives you problems and/or headaches later on - I speak from over 10 years of experience here.

So generally when using something new - take a close look at the "standard" way to use it.

I must emphasize though, that "standard" may differ from "supported".

Either it is supported, OR it works. But NEVER both. ;-)

in terms of performance make sure to separate your databases vs your logs, that would give you a big boost for performance. i think now days a lot of people prefer to use some sort of volume managers such as LVM or similar which gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of adding disks almost seamlessly but the draw back is cpu cycles.

there is no real difference between partitioning drive vs un-partitioned as far as I know.