Which is better to install Windows 7 on GPt or MBR partition?

[Berryracer]

I am about to for another format and install Windows 7 Professional x64

Are there any performance benefits by formatting in GPT or MBR is better?

bare in mind that my SSD is only 256 GB in size so I don't care about the fact that GPT supports partitions of 2.2 TB or higher, I just care about the best peformance

Also, when I used to format, I always used to create the partitions manually using DISKPART and align them to 4096 to eliminate the creation of the extra system partition that keeps a copy of the boot files, is that a good idea?

What about the MSR Reserved partition that gets created automatically when you crate a partition on a GPT disk using the Windows 7 Partition screen?? what's that for?

 

[smakme7757]

Apart from the obvious bonus that GPT provides It doesn't matter. But MBR has better support for recovery tools and imaging software.

I'm pretty sure Windows 7 installer does all the alignment stuff. I've never done anything fancy with diskpart. I just go through the setup process and be done with it.

My PC still performances at peak performance.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Doesnt matter performance wise.

The partition is created for all UEFI installations. GPT requries UEFI.

 

[Berryracer]

Apart from the obvious bonus that GPT provides It doesn't matter. But MBR has better support for recovery tools and imaging software.

I'm pretty sure Windows 7 installer does all the alignment stuff. I've never done anything fancy with diskpart. I just go through the setup process and be done with it.

My PC still performances at peak performance.

thanks a lot

so MBR it is

 

[mikeymikec]

Also, when I used to format, I always used to create the partitions manually using DISKPART and align them to 4096 to eliminate the creation of the extra system partition that keeps a copy of the boot files, is that a good idea?

No. It's supposed to make it more difficult for malware to compromise the system like a boot sector virus would. This next bit is more of a guess, but I would expect that the 'Repair Windows' function on Win7 requires that partition as well (at least, it would make sense to keep a diagnostic environment separate from the main OS... though how separate is it when it's on the same disk as the main OS... ho hum).

 

[Dufus]

Apart from the obvious bonus that GPT provides It doesn't matter.

The obvious bonus being what exactly and would you please care to explain why doesn't it matter.

 

[smakme7757]

The obvious bonus being what exactly and would you please care to explain why doesn't it matter.

He outlined it in his OP.

Most notably is that GPT allows for much larger volumes of over MBR. From memory is also allows a much larger partition count as well.

Then you have the UEFI support and so on. Have a read of the Wikipedia page if you want to learn more about it.

 

[Dufus]

The 2TB+ support is irrelevant to the OP who is using a 0.25TB drive. To me that means it's not a bonus at all and therefore not obvious.

I thought you might have meant full UEFI support, providing BIOS and HW support is available and that would mean the possibility of dispensing with legacy support (CSM disabled) and consequently faster boot times.

Or perhaps the BIOS access that would be available from the OS using GPT but not available using MBR.

Maybe the extra number of visible primary partitions under GPT might be an advantage to some.

The UEFI BIOS RAID driver, unlike the legacy OROM, also provides an ACPI SATA performance table but needs GPT. I do not know if this really provides any advantage though.

Now maybe you can see why to me it is not "obvious" what you meant at all.

 

[smakme7757]

The 2TB+ support is irrelevant to the OP who is using a 0.25TB drive. To me that means it's not a bonus at all and therefore not obvious.

I thought you might have meant full UEFI support, providing BIOS and HW support is available and that would mean the possibility of dispensing with legacy support (CSM disabled) and consequently faster boot times.

Or perhaps the BIOS access that would be available from the OS using GPT but not available using MBR.

Maybe the extra number of visible primary partitions under GPT might be an advantage to some.

The UEFI BIOS RAID driver, unlike the legacy OROM, also provides an ACPI SATA performance table but needs GPT. I do not know if this really provides any advantage though.

Now maybe you can see why to me it is not "obvious" what you meant at all.

Look, no offense, but the "Obvious bonus" is that GPT supports larger volume sizes. That's what the majority of people know about GPT and it's what the OP knew about GPT. He was asking from a performance perspective and in that case it doesn't matter if he uses GPT or MBR.

In this case "Obvious" meant what that OP had already outlined in his OP. Larger volume sizes which isn't a function he requires.

I'm not here to win medals, I'm here to learn and give advice when i can. Sometimes enough information is - Enough. No point going into detail on a technology if its not needed.

However i didn't know about the ACPI SATA performance table, so thanks for that .

 

[Berryracer]

Look, no offense, but the "Obvious bonus" is that GPT supports larger volume sizes. That's what the majority of people know about GPT and it's what the OP knew about GPT. He was asking from a performance perspective and in that case it doesn't matter if he uses GPT or MBR.

In this case "Obvious" meant what that OP had already outlined in his OP. Larger volume sizes which isn't a function he requires.

I'm not here to win medals, I'm here to learn and give advice when i can. Sometimes enough information is - Enough. No point going into detail on a technology if its not needed.

However i didn't know about the ACPI SATA performance table, so thanks for that .

great post dawg.

still, I don't see a final conclusion

putting the support for 2 TB aside, performance wise I am saying, will my system feel snappier with GPT or MBR?

On a side note, I wonder why ASUS had formatted my previous G75VW laptop's SSD in GPT even though it was also 256 GB?

what's why I came here to ask the pros (j00 guys)