What are MBR and GPT standard hard drives? How to check standard hard drive MBR or GPT?

There are two common standards on hard drives today: MBR and GPT. Let’s find out with Tnhelearning.edu.vn what are MBR and GPT standard hard drives, and how to distinguish each type!

What are MBR and GPT standards on hard drives? Pros and cons of each type

MBR and GPT are considered two popular format standards on portable hard drives today. The basic difference between these two formats is in how to import and export data, organize and partition the drive.

What is the MBR standard on the hard drive?

MBR, short for Master Boot Record , came into use in late 1983. The MBR format hard drive has some of the following characteristics:

• Supports all current Windows operating systems (Windows 10, 8, 7, …), especially works well on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms.
• Supports up to 2 TB hard drive capacity .
• Supports creating up to 4 primary partitions (split 4 drives).

MBR (Master Boot Record) is a special boot area containing Boot loader, this is a program that contains all information about the system boot process. Therefore, in some cases, a faulty MBR will make the user’s computer unable to boot up with the error code Miss MBR.

What is GPT standard on hard drive?

GPT stands for GUID Partition Table. This is a new standard, gradually replacing the MBR standard, some of the features of the GPT standard on hard drives are:

• Only support running on Windows 64-bit platform (does not support 32-bit Windows).
• Supports hard drives with capacities up to 256 TB
• Supports up to 128 primary partitions.

Advantages and disadvantages of standard MBR and GPT hard drives:

Advantage	Defect
MBR . Hard Drive	Works well on all current Windows platforms , which means it is compatible with many new computers and both old and new.	MBR data is stored only on a certain partition, so it is prone to errors and is not recoverable. Supports up to 4 primary partitions. If you want to divide the hard drive into multiple partitions, you must create a Logical partition (Extended Partition), but this way has limited features (such as can’t boot, can’t install Win, …).
GPT . Hard Drive	It’s easy to recover data if something goes wrong, as the GPT format allows boot data to be stored in multiple locations on the hard drive. There is a mechanism to automatically detect and fix errors (CRC32) from another location on the hard drive. Supports up to 128 primary partitions , with extremely large partition sizes (up to 256 TB). Use on many operating systems : Windows, Linux, … including Apple’s MAC OS X.	Only support on Windows 64-bit .

Should I use an MBR or a GPT hard drive?

After learning what two hard drive standards are MBR and GPT, many people wonder whether to use MBR or GPT hard drives on their computers. Tnhelearning.edu.vn suggests you some points as follows:

Use standard MBR hard drive when:

• Hard drives with less than 2 TB capacity. If the hard drive has a larger capacity, you can still use the MBR partitioning standard, but you must use 3rd party software to support it, like GParted on Linux, or MBR4TB on Windows.
• There is no need to create too many partitions (split drives).
• Your computer is running the 32-bit Windows operating system.

Use a GPT standard hard drive when:

• Your hard drive is larger than 4TB.
• The computer boots in UEFI standard, installing Windows on the GPT hard drive is appropriate.
• Only use 64-bit versions of Windows.

How to check MBR and GPT . standard hard drives

It can be said that the GPT standard has more advantages and is gradually replacing the MBR standard. However, MBR is more compatible than GPT in some cases. Whichever standard you choose, you also need to know if your computer is using a GPT or MBR hard drive with the following way:

If your computer is running Windows operating system, you can use one of the following two ways to check the hard drive standard as follows:

Method 1: Use diskpart

Step 1: Press the Windows key combination (the key with the window icon) + R to open the RUN dialog box > Then enter the cmd and Enter command to access,

Step 2 : Enter the diskpart command, press Enter , then enter the list disk command and press Enter again.

Step 3 : If you see the GPT column marked with an asterisk (*) , your hard drive is in GPT format . If not , your hard drive is probably in MBR format .

Method 2: Use Disk Management

Step 1 : Press the Windows key (window key on the keyboard) > Type and select diskmgmt .

Step 2 : Right click on the hard drive (which you want to check) and select Properties

Step 3 : Switch to Volumes , look at the Partition style section and you will know what your hard drive is standardizing, as shown below is the MBR standard.

Linux operating system

For computers running Linux operating systems (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian…), you can command parted , then type sudo parted -1

A frame as shown below appears, if the value of Partition Table is msdos , it means that your computer is using a standard MBR hard drive . If the gpt value appears, the computer is in GPT standard.

With the information shared above, hopefully, it will help you better understand the two current hard drive standards, MBR and GPT, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each of these hard drive standards.