Added SSD to Old Laptop

I purchased an Samsung 860 EVO SATA 500GB SSD and installed it in my old ASUS X53U laptop. Cloning the drive was very straightforward and it boots up nicely and seems to be working ok but I have a couple of questions.

The BIOS reports LEGACY BIOS but UEFI is an option. Should I select UEFI?

The SSD is setup as MBR not GPT. Which should I use? Will changing it require a fresh install or can it be converted?

The BIOS reports SATA has AHCI enabled but Samsung Magician reports AHCI disable? Is there something I need to change

Samsung Magician reports the SSD is working correctly but "high speed mode" is off. Should I turn this on?

Thanks in advance.

Bryan

You should select UEFI if you are planning to switch from MBR to GPT. Converting MBR to GPT tutorial is here:

Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk in Windows 10 | Tutorials

I'll double-down on this. If it works don't mess with it.

Ztruker said:

If it's working as it is, why mess with it. If you ever reinstall, convert then. Switch to UEFI and convert the drive to GPT if you want.

Plus ... this is an old laptop, right? It may already be ready for the grave. So what are the odds that you'll need to do more upgrades or changes like UEFI and GPT?

You're getting souped up performance from the SSD. Enjoy.

I agree that switching to UEFI or GPT on the drive will not increase performance.

However, just a note, you do not need to convert the drive to GPT to boot in UEFI mode. You only need a FAT32 system partition to boot from in UEFI. If you do convert the drive to GPT, then you must have a FAT32 boot partition and boot in UEFI mode, though.

Very few computers will boot in UEFI mode from an NTFS partition because the UEFI specification does not require booting from NTFS.

OK - I'll leave well enough alone. Thanks for the help and the information. I appreciate you all sharing your expertise with me.

Bryan