Can I delete a partition (or is it a slice?)

[Roger Merritt]

I have a chance to get my hands on a 4-GB hard drive that's being replaced 
by a 40-GB drive. My other machine really needs more space (it also has a 
4-GB drive), and I'd like to move the /usr/home slice (or is it partition?) 
to the new(er) HDD and delete the /usr/home slice from the older drive. I 
presume the space would then be available to the /usr partition (the two 
are adjacent and /usr/home was created after /usr). Would deleting the 
slice cause my partition table to be rewritten with disastrous results?

Or would it be better to set up three slices, for /, /var, and /usr, on the 
new drive, transfer the data from the old drive with backup and restore, 
backing up the contents of /usr/home to a tarball on the new drive, then 
repartition the old drive with a single slice, /usr/home, and copy the 
backup tarball?

Also, since these two drives would be on the same cable, would using tar to 
transfer the data be faster than backup and restore?

-- 
Roger