Windows 10: GPT versus MBR for W10 boot SSD?

I have a mixture of W10 Pro and Home systems booting from SSD's of various sizes. Several of the newer systems I had preformed a clean install of W8 and set the SSD up as GPT. With the auto update feature for W10 I have ended up with a couple of "old" systems running W10 on MBR formatted SSD's. I'm curious, is there any reason/advantage on why I should do a clean install of W10 on the MBR drives and convert to GPT. The systems in question have the latest and greatest MB's and BIOS's so they should be able to take advantage of what UEFI has to offer? All of the SSD's are 240GB so the number of primary partitions is not an issue.

:)

 

System Image Restore

Yes it can make a difference when using the GPT format on a drive it is made to use with UEFI and Boots in a different way not using MBR. But I have Installed on GPT before and just have to add the OS partition to the Master Boot record manually so it would
boot.

When using a GPT formatted disk with a MBR system it is best used as storage and not for an OS.

I think the thing with MBR is if you make a boot record in the Master boot record that goes to a disk that does not have an OS or something that will not boot it will fail to boot.

 

Converting a MBR disk to a GPT disk

This BS Microsoft stop forcing us to convert from MBR to GPT

-> The MBR scheme will work for disks up to 2 TBytes.

I don't care whether it might boot up quicker

-> MS does not claim that GPT boots up faster than MBR.

 

As long as the System supports UEFI then you can convert HDD / SSD to GPT
UEFI=GPT > 128 partitions + support over 2TB
BIOS=MBR > 4 partitions

 

The mix of "old" and MBR suggests to me the BIOS on those 2 computers may not support anything other than MBR. If they are working I'd leave them alone. But then the mention of "latest and greatest MB's and BIOS's" suggests the computers are not all that old. I've run Win10 on a Desktop that original came with WinVista and a Notebook that came with WinXP, as long as the hardware met the system requirements there should be no major problem but as with any upgrade the drivers for the motherboard may present a challenge. So far with 6 Upgrades I've had only Bluetooth driver issues and Dell provided those updates.

 

In terms of performance GPT may shave a couple of seconds off of boot time, but MBR is slightly better otherwise.

In terms of recovery from data corruption GPT has better capabilities than MBR.

I would leave it as is, YMMV.

 

Thanks for the responses.

The system I'm questioning has a ASRock Fata1ty Z97X Killer MB that inherited an older 120GB SSD boot drive that was formatted as MBR. I just cloned that drive to a 240GB Sandisk Extreme Pro and of course got a 120GB boot partition and a bunch of unallocated space after the 450MB partition.

My question still is: will a GPT formatted drive give me any additional features under W10 on this system? There must be a reason MSFT wants to default to GPT when installing W8 and W10 on a new drive or a drive that has all the partitions deleted before installation? I have been using this system as a test platform so a clean reinstall should not be a major issue as long as the information on the internet is correct about MSFT not needing a W10 key once the system is registered (it is) as a legitimate W10 upgrade.

 

For AsRock MB. If you want to set the BIOS to Ultra Fast Boot then you need to install Windows with GPT. This feature will boot the PC in less than 10 sec.

 

No, there are no 'special' Windows 10 features for GPT beyond GPT's inherent features already pointed out in this thread.

Because UEFI and GPT are now, essentially, the standard for new machines.

 

Ok, thanks for all the input. I guess the advantages of GPT make it worth the effort...AND... I really wanted to try a fresh install of an Updated W10 system to see if it stays registered properly. If it doesn't I'll be back!!

 

Secure Boot only works in UEFI Boot Mode, when you enable Secure Boot in your PC's UEFI firmware (BIOS) settings. But if you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8/10 64-bit preinstalled, then Secure Boot is turned on by default.

 

By the way, it is possible to convert the partition table from MBR to GPT using the tool gptgen: Here you'll find a quite comprehensive guide as well as a download link. I used this myself to convert my non system disks.

warning: Don't try it without backing up all your data. The tool works but messing around with partition tables can easily lead to complete data loss!

What's more I highly doubt this will work with system disks. But if you have got one or more separate data disks it is a very handy tool.

 

GPT formatted SSD with a EFI system partition and UEFI boot set in BIOS can shave lots of seconds off your boot time compared to a MBR boot. Just GPT by itself will save you nothing (but does provide redundant partition info which MBR doesn't).

 

Hi there

GPT will be mandatory for partitions / HDD's > 2TB if you want to use the WHOLE HDD. Provided you have say a second HDD say a small capacity SSD which you can use as a boot drive then there's no problems using GPT on computers that only BOOT via MBR (I.e no UEFI mode in the BIOS).

So if your computer is MBR then I'd see if I can isolate the OS and put it on its own HDD - a good idea in any case - and have GPT for any other HDD's.

Note you CAN convert MBR -->GPT without losing data -- but NOT the other way around.

I think also if you are using XP or some versions of W7 for "dual booting" you can't boot these OS'es from GPT HDD's even if you have a UEFI Bios.

If you are using an SSD for BOOT -- the boot process is fast enough anyway -- a few millisecs here or there is an irrelevance.

Cheers
jimbo