UEFI Boot - Is it worth it?

[Kenmitch]

I'll keep my eye out for this.

Theres no doubt that UEFI has many architectural improvements over BIOS but whats visible to the end user may not be any different. If I was in your boat and I was secure erasing my drive then I would do it but I've got to do my whole install again. I've only just finished it lol.

Kenmitch - Could I leave my second drive in my system (1TB HDD) as MBR or would it need GPT also?

It's one of those what the hell if your gonna install again anyways you might as well try it. I've seen no ill effects from it.

Coup27: I have a 1tb hitachi storage drive and it's MBR still as far as I can tell. I'm no diskpart expert but the only one that has a * under GPT is my SSD. Seeing how I didn't loose my data it must be untouched.

Alot of people suggest only having the SSD attached during the windows install to make sure the installer puts the required partitons only on the SSD. Sometimes the installer brain farts and puts them wherever causing booting issues later if drives are removed, added.

 

[Coup27]

Thats good to hear. One negative I have found is how poor support from imaging programs is for GPT. I use acronis true image home but I never bother with the program and just use the recovery cd. from there you can pre-boot into it and backup to, and backup from images. it has no support for GPT and neither does ghost 15's cold imaging from what I've read. Though to be honest I can't remember the last time I restored my personal PC from an image so it might be academic. I'll wait and see what Axonn finds out.

 

[Kenmitch]

Thats good to hear. One negative I have found is how poor support from imaging programs is for GPT. I use acronis true image home but I never bother with the program and just use the recovery cd. from there you can pre-boot into it and backup to, and backup from images. it has no support for GPT and neither does ghost 15's cold imaging from what I've read. Though to be honest I can't remember the last time I restored my personal PC from an image so it might be academic. I'll wait and see what Axonn finds out.

Guess system backup could be a problem. I did come across the following pages from acronis when looking around on google tho. I didn't give system restore much thought other than Windows 7 built in. Most of the time I wind up swapping parts and doing a fresh install long before I detonate Windows 7 as it's pretty solid.

http://kb.acronis.com/content/24018

http://kb.acronis.com/content/6533

 

[RU482]

so, if I have a UEFI BIOS, and a sub-2TB boot drive, what are the pros/cons of formatting a drive GPT vs MBR?

 

[Axonn]

Here's what a rather experienced user has to say about the issue. I've been over at the OCZ Forum regarding this issue because I own a Vertex 3 and I got an account there as well. Wanted to know their 2 cents.

Judging from the systems he's worked, the guy who answered me has a ton of experience in these matters.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...ith-quot-UEFI-Boot-quot-option-Is-it-worth-it

So, at least according to one experienced guy, there's no reason to go UEFI boot. I will still do it because I have nothing to lose, but, yeah, just for the record: don't *need* to.

 

[PinkPad]

Thanks for posting -- I'm a long time reader, but I guess I should start chiming in.

Using a ThinkPad X220 with sleep/resume all the time, I'm not sure if UEFI made a huge difference for me, and I didn't feel like trying everything again via a Legacy/BIOS scenario.

My boot/shut down experiences are pretty much identical to this user's video.

The ThinkPad screen sure takes a while to come up on that particular model. I wonder if someone could play around with the X220 UEFI/BIOS and enable the 'rapid' option that the T420s has, to skip the ThinkPad screen altogether. That would probably make a 10 second boot like the T420s, but it would just be icing on the cake for me... I'm pretty happy with the cake by itself.

 

[Axonn]

Hello PinkPad and welcome to the Forum. Glad to see a new member reply in one of my Threads. I'm also rather new ::- ). But yeah, say goodbye to the world of Lurking and say hello to a nice community. Very few flamers around here, most answers I ever received on this Forum were well written, kind and professional.

As for your ThinkPad screen, go into its BIOS/UEFI and check if you have an option called "Full Screen Logo" or "Show Boot Logo" or anything along these lines. Disable it. For example, for my ASUS boards, it was enabled by default.

 

[mv2devnull]

I have a dual boot setup: Windows 7 and CentOS 5. The CentOS is still using legacy GRUB, which in turn does not support GPT properly. However, I did partition the disk to GPT and then did install Windows 7 in UEFI mode. CentOS I did juggle blindfolded.

The end-result is that Windows entry was added to UEFI registry (nvram, whatever), Windows bootmanager/loader is in hidden special EFI partition, and GRUB stage1 is in pseudo-MBR part of GPT table. If I had GRUB2, it would have its own UEFI registry entry and files in that hidden partition too.

If I just turn on power, UEFI loads Windows.
If I hit "BIOS Boot Menu", the first device is effectively the MBR of the disk, starting GRUB and therefore CentOS.

The point is that with UEFI/GPT I can have multiple OS on same disk and select which to boot with "BIOS" rather than using bootmanager of any OS for selection/chainloading.

 

[taltamir]

UEFI Boot - Is it worth it?

I think a better question is, BIOS boot, is it worth it.
Since it doesn't cost you anything extra, what do you GAIN by using BIOS? Why not just tick the check-box in the mobo settings for UEFI?

 

[Axonn]

mv2devnull: isn't it kind of difficult for you to invoke BIOS every time you want to go in Linux?

taltamir: that's what I've been thinking too: "why not?" Why not? Well, one worry I had was that this is still a rather new technology and I would HATE to wake up with a dead OS after X months. But I guess the number of people using this is already in the millions. I haven't heard complaints so far. However, since I got a Vertex 3, extra reasons for care are warranted ::- D.

 

[mv2devnull]

mv2devnull: isn't it kind of difficult for you to invoke BIOS every time you want to go in Linux?

Not BIOS but boot menu, and it is quick.

When dual booting you must always choose from some list the OS that you want to boot. One might be a default that starts without interaction. But to choose others, you must invoke a list somehow and then select from the list. Boot menu list is no different from a bootmanager menu.

 

[Coup27]

My reason for "why not" would be I would have to re-do my whole OS. Depending on if it makes a difference for Axonn will be whether I do it.

 

[Axonn]

I haven't forgot about this thread Coup27, but I just had a tough week. Will probably get down with the reinstall in 3-4 days. UEFI Boot it shall be. In the meantime, I gathered plenty of benchmarks about my current OS performance, boot time and so on.

 

[Coup27]

Ok pal no probs.

 

[BFG10K]

Since it doesn't cost you anything extra, what do you GAIN by using BIOS?

The ability to continue using MBR partitions to boot, and guaranteed compatibility with existing cloning software.

 

[taltamir]

The ability to continue using MBR partitions to boot

MBR is a POS that needed to die decades ago.

and guaranteed compatibility with existing cloning software.

Why would you use cloning software? It is a negligible amount of extra effort to do a clean install and doing a clean install is greatly beneficial.
Not to mention cloning software does not correctly align 4k sectors (SSDs and new HDDs)

 

[Old Hippie]

Well Hell's Bells!

You guys are way ahead of me.

I didn't even know that UEFI was optional! LOL!

 

[Coup27]

Why would you use cloning software? It is a negligible amount of extra effort to do a clean install and doing a clean install is greatly beneficial.
Not to mention cloning software does not correctly align 4k sectors (SSDs and new HDDs)

Sorry but this is not true.

A full install, all updates, programs and all your settings (and settings for each program) even on a top of the line system is still a good few hours. Restoring from an image takes <15 minutes. Also my images are done after a clean format.

Images are also a lot more important in the corporate world. I'm rolling out a new small office in the new year and if image programs still dont support GPT then I will stick with MBR.

Also Acronis (at least) does not alter alignment, meaning if the partitions were 4k aligned when imaged they will be when restored.

 

[Axonn]

I second Coup27. Using Acronis after Clean Installs + clean programs (that I always use), I kept a Windows XP for 3 years and it was working perfectly when I did major changes to the hardware and even though it continued to work, the purist in me reinstalled it.

Cloning rocks.

Old Hippie: UEFI isn't optional. UEFI just is, or is not. On these new motherboards, it always is. What is, however, optional, is UEFI BOOT.

 

[Rvenger]

I did this and I wacked my windows install on just a Bios install! The UEFI option disappeared and I couldn't reselect it.

 

[BFG10K]

MBR is a POS that needed to die decades ago.

Heh, your motherboard doesn’t even have EFI boot, does it? The i875K isn’t exactly ancient. GPT provides no practical benefit for discs 2 TB or less.

It is a negligible amount of extra effort to do a clean install and doing a clean install is greatly beneficial.

Is this a joke? I have ~400 GB worth of games alone. Reinstalling those off discs would literally take days. A restore from my backup Caviar Blue to my main Caviar Black takes about one hour, and I don’t have to sit there swapping discs either.

 

[Old Hippie]

Old Hippie: UEFI isn't optional. UEFI just is, or is not. On these new motherboards, it always is. What is, however, optional, is UEFI BOOT.

Cool.

 

[Axonn]

BFG10K: Wow, holy macaroni! How big are your backups? I usually back up only OS & programs. Games were on a different partition (since I got most of them on Steam which doesn't complain at OS reinstall). But now since I switched to SSD, they reside on the OS partition and, because the total size is almost 70 GB, I stopped making backups because "they're too large". And here is this guy with a ~450 GB backup ::- D.

 

[taltamir]

Sorry but this is not true.

A full install, all updates, programs and all your settings (and settings for each program) even on a top of the line system is still a good few hours. Restoring from an image takes <15 minutes. Also my images are done after a clean format.

1. It takes about 3x longer to install a service pack then to integrate that SP into a new install disk and install the OS from it.
2. Installing all the updates adds time but they keep making rollups which make it quicker and smoother.
3. Installing all programs back defeats some of the purpose of doing a "reinstall" in the first place. They are all going to be outdated and potentially abandoned for other programs and will require that you upgrade each program, which takes longer then just installing the latest version would (since you typically have to uninstall).
4. And settings are trivial.
5. It is significantly less buggy to install a clean install of latest SP, and then upgrade to current rollups. MS doesn't test every combination and I have seen several times where installing one specific patch after another specific patch (which got pulled) caused windows to become corrupted. (on multiple computers ). So I find it safer to go that route. This is also why I don't integrate patches into install disk (even though I can and have done it before), only service packs.

Images are also a lot more important in the corporate world.

As it should be... although often people are lazy and use images improperly, installing an image from somewhat different hardware which can cause some issues. But considering the context I asked it in, I was obviously not referring to corporate use but for a person making an image of their single PC.

I'm rolling out a new small office in the new year and if image programs still dont support GPT then I will stick with MBR.

That is a mistake. MBR is horrible and should not be used over GPT.

Also Acronis (at least) does not alter alignment, meaning if the partitions were 4k aligned when imaged they will be when restored.

That is good, although it can still cause problems if you are changing out the drive.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

I was about to format a fresh SSD for a boot drive. I noticed the option to go to GPT.

What are the pros and cons? I have been using Acronis to image the previous drive. Will I still be able to do so?