What is the difference between GPT and MBR when partitioning a hard disk?

When you set up a new disk in Windows 8 or 8.1, you are asked whether you want to use an MBR or a GPT partition. GPT is a new standard and is gradually replacing the MBR.

GPT brings a lot of new features, but MBR still has the best compatibility. GPT is not a new standard for Windows-specific--mac OS X,linux, and other operating systems use GPT as well. Before you use a new disk, you must partition it. The MBR (Master Boot Record) and GPT (GUID Partition Table) are two different ways to store partition information on disk. These partition information contains information about where the partition started, so that the operating system knows which sector belongs to which partition and which partition is bootable. When you create a partition on a disk, you must make a selection between MBR and GPT.

MBR's limitation of MBR means "master boot Record", which was first presented in IBM PC DOS 2.0 in 1983. The "Master boot Record" is called because it is a special boot sector that exists in the start part of the drive. This sector contains logical partition information for the boot loader and drive of the installed operating system. The so-called bootloader is a small piece of code that is used to load larger loaders on other partitions on the drive. If you have installed the initial information for the Windows,windows boot loader in this area-if the MBR information is overwritten causing Windows to not start, you will need to use the MBR Repair feature of Windows to get it back to normal. If you have Linux installed, it will usually be the grub loader in the MBR. The MBR supports a maximum of 2TB disks, and it cannot handle disks larger than 2TB capacity. MBR also supports only up to 4 primary partitions--if you want more partitions, you need to create so-called "extended partitions" and create logical partitions in them. MBR has become the industry standard for disk partitioning and startup.

GPT's advantage GPT means GUID partition table. (The GUID means a globally unique identifier). This is a new standard that is gradually replacing the MBR. It complements the UEFI--uefi to replace the old BIOS, while GPT replaces the old MBR. It is called a GUID partition table because each partition on your drive has a globally unique identifier (globally unique identifier,guid)-a randomly generated string You can guarantee that each GPT partition on the earth is assigned a completely unique identifier. This standard does not have those limitations of MBR. Disk drive capacity can be much larger than the operating system and file systems are not supported. It also supports an almost unlimited number of partitions, limiting only that the operating system--windows supports up to 128 GPT partitions, and you do not need to create an extended partition. On an MBR disk, the partition and boot information is saved together. If this part of the data is overwritten or destroyed, things will be in trouble. In contrast, GPT keeps a copy of this information on the entire disk, so it is more robust and can restore this piece of information that is corrupted. GPT also maintains a cyclic redundancy check code (CRC) for this information to ensure it is complete and correct-if the data is corrupted, GPT will detect the damage and recover from other places on the disk. The MBR is powerless on these issues-only after the problem has occurred can you find that the computer is not booting, or that the disk partitions are missing.

Compatibility a drive that uses GPT will contain a "protective mbr". This MBR will assume that the GPT drive has a partition that occupies the entire disk. If you use the Honest MBR disk utility to manage GPT disks, you will only see a partition that occupies the entire disk. This protective MBR guarantees that older disk tools do not treat GPT disks as empty disks without partitions and overwrite the existing GPT information with MBR.

On UEFI-based computer systems, all 64-bit editions of Windows 8.1, 8, 7, and Vista, and their corresponding server versions, can only be started from GPT partitions. All versions of Windows 8.1, 8, 7, and Vista can read and use GPT partitions. Other modern operating systems also support GPT. Linux has built-in GPT support. Apple's Intel-based Mac computer is no longer using its own apt (Apple Partition Table) to use GPT instead.

We recommend that you use GPT to partition the disk. It is more advanced, more robust, and all computer systems are being transferred to it. If you need to maintain compatibility with legacy systems-like starting Windows on a computer with a traditional BIOS, you need to use MBR.

What is the difference between GPT and MBR when partitioning a hard disk?