[TriLUG] Partitioning recommendations

[Jos Purvis]

...but not quite the usual question. I have this-here big-ol' 320GB
secondary disk that I just installed this morning in my workstation.
It's intended to be reserved for backups (long story) of another
machine, creating a local Yum repository...stuff like that. The OS is
quite happy on its own 80GB disk, so I'm looking to just put, say,
/opt on this one and slap all of the backup/repository/whatever
storage under there.

Here's my question: does it matter how I partition the disk? My first
instinct was to just create one huge partition of 320GB, then I
thought I should do something with LVM for fun, then I realized it's
just one disk, so LVM would seem silly if I'm not creating multiple
partitions. Is there any reason (performance or otherwise) not to just
create one partition and move on? Am I overthinking this entirely?
When making stewed tomatoes, are three enough? Are four too many?

Thoughts?

    --Jos