How to Initialize my Hard Drives?

[jimono123]

Hey Tom's Hardware Folks,

I had a question for people that are more knowledgable than I. I just recently installed two new hard drives in my rig and I just booted up Windows for the first time with them both installed. When I access the Disk Management utility in Windows 7 (64 bit), it prompts me to initialize the two disks as either MBR or GPT. I'm not quite sure all of what that means though and which option I should do. Is there a benefit or necesity to either option? I just installed a 250GB SSD (Samsung EVO 840) and a 4TB drive in addition to the 120GB SSD and 2TB drive I've been using. My planned setup for all the drives is as follows:

-250GB SSD - Primary (With Windows 7)
-120GB SSD - Frequently used programs, games, etc. (I previously used this as my main drive)
-2TB - Documents, Music, Movies
-4TB - Games

Which initialization should I do for each of my hard drives? Thanks in advance for people's help. I really appreciate your input. Thanks

 

[ThatVietGuy]

Drives over 2TB need to be GPT.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/272738-32-formatting-drive

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The 4TB drive has to be GPT, or you can't use the full space.

The SSD can be either. If you want to clone your current install, it will probably have to be whatever your current SSD is. If you do a new install, then it depends on if you boot the install disk in UEFI (GPT) or Legacy (MBR) mode.

 

[jimono123]

The 4TB drive has to be GPT, or you can't use the full space.

The SSD can be either. If you want to clone your current install, it will probably have to be whatever your current SSD is. If you do a new install, then it depends on if you boot the install disk in UEFI (GPT) or Legacy (MBR) mode.

I will probably be wiping all 4 drives and installing a fresh copy of windows so cloning a drive is not really a concern for me. I'm not sure if this is relevant information or not but when I boot up my computer, the ASUS message references UEFI BIOS. Does that mean anything in relation to booting the install disk in UEFI? And also, is there a benefit or drawback if I were to just Initialize everything in GPT? Thanks in advance.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If it says UEFI BIOS, then it means you can boot it in UEFI mode. You don't have to, but it is an option.

It's typically harder to get to the BIOS configuration in UEFI/GPT systems - you don't get a few seconds to press a key; you have to either go through Windows or hit F8 really fast while windows is booting. UEFI boots faster, though.

 

[jimono123]

If it says UEFI BIOS, then it means you can boot it in UEFI mode. You don't have to, but it is an option.

It's typically harder to get to the BIOS configuration in UEFI/GPT systems - you don't get a few seconds to press a key; you have to either go through Windows or hit F8 really fast while windows is booting. UEFI boots faster, though.

So it sounds like going with all drives as GPT is fairly optional except for my 4TB drive. But there's not necessarily a benefit to doing either. Would that be an accurate statement? Thanks for your help.