The merits of GPT partitioning are well documented and discussed.
But does O/S disk partitioning under GPT best MBR definitively in actual usage - apart from boot?
Comment from knowledgeable techs or those with first-hand comparison of the two schemes is invited.
Last edited by borgus; 10 Jul 2020 at 00:16.
I've never had a system where I booted from a GPT partition, but I can tell you, that it takes my new comp approx. 20 seconds to boot from an MBR partition (Samsung 860 EVO 500GB - 2.5" SSD).
This ofc, is a new computer with a fresh Windows 10 install. (Only three startup entries)
Also involved in the choice of one over the other is the size/capacity of drives, usually important above 2TB. Might be good to use GPT if anticipating future cloning smaller to a larger.
max partition size mbr at DuckDuckGo
GPT v. MBR will not even affect boot times. Do not confuse UEFI v. BIOS with GPT v. MBR, they are entirely 2 different comparisons.
Legacy BIOS can only boot MBR drives. UEFI can boot both MBR and GPT drives. When booting in UEFI, I would bet the speed differences between MBR v. GPT drive partitioning would be on the order of milliseconds.
There are also other advantages to booting in UEFI mode v. BIOS mode, but again GPT v. MBR is completely irrelevant to that discussion as well.
"Advantages of the GPT scheme
UEFI uses the GUID Partition Table, which utilizes Globally Unique IDs to address partitions, and allows booting from hard disks as large as 9.4ZB [one zettabyte = one billion terabytes], while in MBR bootable disks are limited in size to 2.2TB.
Up to 128 partitions [“primary” partitions or GPT partitions] for the Windows implementation [only 4 in MBR].
The maximum allowed partition size is 18 exabytes [only 2 terabytes in MBR].
More reliable thanks to replication and cyclic redundancy check [CRC] protection of the partition table.
Data critical to the platform operation is located in partitions, but not in un-partitioned or hidden sectors as this is the case with MBR.
A well-defined and fully self-identifying partition format. Support for additional partition type GUIDs defined by original equipment manufacturers [OEMs], independent software vendors [ISVs], and other operating systems."
Hi there
If for example you use any Linux systems you no longer get the problem with "fstab changes" when you add other HDD's etc when booting.
For example now fstab does it all with UUID making device additions irrelevant (the old way was fstab pointed to the device nr e.g /dev/xxx which could change if devices were connected to the system before booting).
E.G
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Fri Jul 10 07:41:13 2020
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk/'.
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info.
#
# After editing this file, run 'systemctl daemon-reload' to update systemd
# units generated from this file.
#
UUID=e577565c-e397-4088-9ddd-73b62c2ad7ac / xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=2868-30CB /boot/efi vfat umask=0077,shortname=winnt 0 2
UUID=9cc21d04-60d9-4757-aff4-298f328cf28e /home xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=ae1ed2d6-f1d5-4cfa-9b68-d197e2d78941 none swap defaults 0 0
also UEFI allows secure boot etc. There will be no speed difference after boot of course.
Cheers
jimbo
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