GPT or MBR?

[Silva94]

So I just put in my new WD 4TB Hard drive and am about to install it.It asks me to Initialize Disk and gives me 2 options which it selects GPT by default. Which one should I pick?

[PCGuy_5960]

GPT so that you can have all those 4TBs

[Silva94]

Thanks!

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, Silva94 said:

Thanks!

Np!

[Captain_WD]

On 11.11.2016 г. at 11:11 PM, Silva94 said:

~snip~

Hi there Welcome to the community! 

 

As @PCGuy_5960 pointed out GPT should be the better option as with MBR you won't be able to utilize more than 2.2TB from that drive.

What is the drive's model? 

 

Here are some useful differences between GPT and MBR if you happen to need them or you are interested:

MBR (Master Boot Record):

• Dates back to March 1983
• First introduced in IBM PC with DOS 2.0
• It is located at the beginning of the storage drive
• Stores the "Boot Loader" plus information about the partitions on the drive
• Works with drives up to 2TB in capacity
• Supports up to 4 primary partitions
• You can have more partitions by creating logical partitions in a "Extended Partition"

 

GPT (GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) Partition Table):

• Came in the late 1990s
• Officially part of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) standard as of 2010
• Practically every partition on every drive in the world has its own unique identifier
• Supports up to 128 partitions
• Stores multiple copies of the partitioning and boot data across the drive (unlike MBR)
• Features CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) which enables it to self-correct corrupted data
• Contains a "Protective MBR"

 

Mind that booting off a GPT drive requires either OS support or BIOS/UEFI support.

 

Captain_WD.