Is there any disadvantage to converting my 2TB Windows 10 drive from MBR to GPT?

[Cyber Akuma]

I want to upgrade from a 2TB drive to a 4TB drive in a few months, and I just want to have everything setup and ready so when I get the drive I can just image my 2TB drive over to the 4TB one and get going without much fuss. (To be technical, it's two 1TB SSDs in RAID0 that I will be replacing with 2TB versions). 
 
I know that you need GPT for a drive over 2TB, and that Windows 10 has tools to convert a MBR drive to GPT, but is there any reason to leave a drive that's 2TB or under on MBR? I know that older 32bit operating systems won't work on it, that's not an issue as I only have Windows 10 64bit on it, are there any other downsides or disadvantages to using GPT on a drive below 2TB or can I just convert it to GPT to prepare it for when I eventually will image it to a 4TB drive? And would that RAID I mentioned get in the way of it in any way?

[George P Global Moderator]

On 8/27/2019 at 9:51 PM, Cyber Akuma said:

I want to upgrade from a 2TB drive to a 4TB drive in a few months, and I just want to have everything setup and ready so when I get the drive I can just image my 2TB drive over to the 4TB one and get going without much fuss. (To be technical, it's two 1TB SSDs in RAID0 that I will be replacing with 2TB versions). 
 
I know that you need GPT for a drive over 2TB, and that Windows 10 has tools to convert a MBR drive to GPT, but is there any reason to leave a drive that's 2TB or under on MBR? I know that older 32bit operating systems won't work on it, that's not an issue as I only have Windows 10 64bit on it, are there any other downsides or disadvantages to using GPT on a drive below 2TB or can I just convert it to GPT to prepare it for when I eventually will image it to a 4TB drive? And would that RAID I mentioned get in the way of it in any way?

I didn't bother with this on my smaller 512GB C drive so it's the old MBR but going GPT even on smaller drives gives you advantages over MBR.  Mostly for protection from data error.   Long ago I'd have my MBR get corrupt, then I'd have to use tools to repair it.  GPT is much more safe as far as that goes.

 

So why not switch everything to GPT if you can?  I see no disadvantage to it.

[erpster3]

Cyber, if your machine has UEFI, then make the switch to GPT.  UEFI systems work best with large HDDs & SSDs using GPT instead of MBR

[Cyber Akuma]

It has UEFI, but I think my motherboard is currently in Legacy mode. So that's another hurdle I would have to overcome. Hopefully Windows won't complain about that if I switch it to UEFI.

 

Most of the guides I saw though strangely mentioned switching the motherboard to UEFI after the conversion..... wouldn't it make more sense to do it after since UEFI does support booting off of MBR?

[PGHammer]

On 9/10/2019 at 12:18 PM, Cyber Akuma said:

It has UEFI, but I think my motherboard is currently in Legacy mode. So that's another hurdle I would have to overcome. Hopefully Windows won't complain about that if I switch it to UEFI.

 

Most of the guides I saw though strangely mentioned switching the motherboard to UEFI after the conversion..... wouldn't it make more sense to do it after since UEFI does support booting off of MBR?

Previous flavors of Windows (both 8 and 10) required that.  There are utilities (such as Acronis TrueImage) allow for conversion after installation.  I have a GPT HDD of 2 TB; however, I am looking at a larger - 4 TB - HDD.  Only more recent versions of Windows 10 allow a single GPT partition of greater than 2 TB..  When I purchase this HDD, I am going to need to perform a double-move - first from the 2 TB HDD to the new 4 TB (if not larger) HDD; then from my second HDD (512 GB), to the just-vacated ex-boot 2 TB HDD.  Acronis TrueImage allows for this. If you purchase a 4 TB or larger HDD, it will likely include Acronis TrueImage (both Seagate and Western Digital include it; in Seagate's case, it is called DiscWizard) to handle the conversion afterward.

[PGHammer]

On 8/27/2019 at 2:51 PM, Cyber Akuma said:

I want to upgrade from a 2TB drive to a 4TB drive in a few months, and I just want to have everything setup and ready so when I get the drive I can just image my 2TB drive over to the 4TB one and get going without much fuss. (To be technical, it's two 1TB SSDs in RAID0 that I will be replacing with 2TB versions). 
 
I know that you need GPT for a drive over 2TB, and that Windows 10 has tools to convert a MBR drive to GPT, but is there any reason to leave a drive that's 2TB or under on MBR? I know that older 32bit operating systems won't work on it, that's not an issue as I only have Windows 10 64bit on it, are there any other downsides or disadvantages to using GPT on a drive below 2TB or can I just convert it to GPT to prepare it for when I eventually will image it to a 4TB drive? And would that RAID I mentioned get in the way of it in any way?

None that I have found; I converted to GPT when I went to UEFI, despite then having a boot drive smaller than 2 TB.  GPT has more advantages than disadvantages for boot drives as small as 1 TB; I'm referring to platter drives - not SSDs.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Probably the main issue would be compatibility with pre-GPT tools and utilities (e.g., pre-Windows Vista).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

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