When it came time to create a new volume on this new NVme drive in my new PC build I saw the checkbox choice for MBR (default) and below it GPT (GUID) type disk.  Well I just left it in default never bothering to look into what this choice was about.  After reading about the differences it seems like GPT was what I should have selected.  Fast forward to now and I had already installed Win 10 & P3D w/ all its updated add-ons before learning about GPT v MBR.

Apparently Windows 10 comes w/ an MS utility to convert an MBR type disk to GPT with no data loss, called MBR2GPT.  The caveat is your hardware must be able to be UEFI compliant because GPT drives can only be booted thru a UEFI compliant BIOS.   I may not be saying that right as I'm not sure of the difference between a BIOS in my MSI MPG Gaming Edge AC and UEFI.  But I think this board's BIOS is UEFI compliant if that makes sense.

Obviously it's working fine as a MBR type disk.  Win 10, P3D, everything is fast and stable.  I plan to create just 3 primary partitions in this drive so no need for GPT for this limitation in MBR.    There are other benefits to GPT I read. 

I still need to create the 2 new primary partitions that I will be putting a new OS on one of them, so I'm thinking now's the time I should do this if it's worth it.  It will have some risk, but not much, and I don't yet have a full back up of my new install so it will be a royal pain to reformat and reinstall it all again.  

Anyway, should I do this one-way conversion to GPT now, before I create and install into two new partitions? 

Thanks for your opinions on this one.

 

Microsoft states there are only 2 conditions that require the use of GPT:

More than 4 partitions

Greater than 2TB disk size

Edited April 1, 20206 yr by TechguyMaxC