I have taken this approach for secondary drives where I want to use the entire drive as a big filesystem for data.
For the system disk I have always partitioned it though. I generally create at least /, /var, /home, and /usr. That way it's less likely that a runaway process can fill up the entire disk, at worst it might fill up /home or /var.
And unless I'm really space-constrained, I'll leave some unpartitioned space as well, for later flexibility.
That is an excellent application of partitions but it's better done with LVM so you can change the partitions' sizes easily. You should be able to install LVM on the whole disk.
For the system disk I have always partitioned it though. I generally create at least /, /var, /home, and /usr. That way it's less likely that a runaway process can fill up the entire disk, at worst it might fill up /home or /var.
And unless I'm really space-constrained, I'll leave some unpartitioned space as well, for later flexibility.