2TB external drive, disk initialization: MBR or GPT

Question

I just bought a new 2TB disk drive I plan to use as an external drive (connected via eSATA). When I started my computer it recognized the drive fine, but when I got into the Disk Management, a popup told me that I have to initialize that drive and I have to choose between MBR and GPT layout.

The drive will be primarily used on Windows 7 computers (both x86 and x64) as well as on a Windows Vista x64 computer (which is the one the message appeared on).

I do not plan to create multiple partitions on that drive as it is only supposed to be a data storage disk.

Which partition layout should I choose, MBR or GPT? The dialog itself recommends to use GPT on drives >= 2TB or on Itanium based computers, but I want to make sure that I will be able to access the drive later on my other computers.

Solution 1

GPT will not be usable by XP and earlier systems (I think), so avoid it if that is an issue. Not having seen an XP machine in 3 years it's not an issue for me so I use it in preference to MBR, but it makes little difference at this point in time. At some point, you will have to use GPT, until then, make a choice.

Solution 2

As of now, support for GPT among common systems is limited. Check out the list of supported OSes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#OS_support_of_GPT

Comments

[Nagu Bhanoth]

Well, I don't plan to ever use an XP (or older) system - well, at least not in combination with this drive - so I guess I'm completely fine with GPT. Thanks!

[Pylsa]

@poke Basically if you're not interested in XP or earlier, yes.

[Glyph]

If you have <4 partitions won't XP be fine with the MBR compatibility stuff in GPT?

[phuclv]

@Glyph Actually GPT is safer because it doesn't have "hidden" data that may accidentally be deleted, and it stores the GPT entries in 2 places, so if one has problem it can use the backup one to restore. MBR uses only the first sector to store data so if it fails, you have posibility of losing data.

[Glyph]

Sure. I'm saying that GPT is better even if you do need XP support, because GPT has MBR emulation, but not the other way around.