Going from NTFS to GPT

Jackietools · Oct 22, 2014

I currently just cloned a 1TB 7200 HDD to a WD Green 2 TB HDD that I had laying around for a year. I now realize that it only spins around 5400 RPM. I have all my games and libraries stored on the WD drive while my O/S and most programs are on a 240 GB SSD. Will using this WD Green ruin my gaming performance? I was thinking of replacing it with a TOSHIBA DT01ACA300 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive. Would this be worth the 90 dollars? Also I understand the 3 TB drive would have to be formatted GPT which I have never dealt with. Will I run into any problems if I clone the 2 TB WD Green(NTFS) onto a 3 TB (GPT) partitioned HDD? Is it even possible to do this?

AntonMir · Oct 22, 2014

In games, HDD speeds affect only for map/save/etc. loading times, not for FPS.
If you play games where map doesn't change often, you probably won't notice any difference.
My WD Green isn't really that bad for games. The only game I play that has a lot map changes is Half-Life 2 and it only takes max. 5 seconds to load up a map.
You should test a few games before buying a new HDD and see if it's too slow for you.

nick779 · Oct 22, 2014

Be careful with the greens, theyre notorious for failing because the drive head parks so often.

Jackietools · Oct 22, 2014

AntonMir :

Glad to hear that with gaming. I'd hate to just waste a good 2 TB HDD. If I have to wait an extra couple of seconds to load a game it's not worth buying a new HDD. Thanks.

Jackietools · Oct 22, 2014

nick779 :

Really? Good to know. I've really never had aproblem with a HDD but a lot of people who I have fixed PC's for sem to have had problems. Guess Im lucky but I will keep this in mind before I decide. Thanks. Does anyone know if there is a problem cloning from a NTFS HDD onto a GPT partitioned new HDD( no O/S on new HDD)?

Captain_WD · Oct 22, 2014

Jackietools :

Hey Jackietools,

As AntonMir pointed out, games rely on storage only for loading times (initial and in-game). FPS and graphics are not affected at all. Games such as World of Warcraft that need to load maps and load different graphics constantly or every once in a while would be affected slightly but most games won't. What games are you planning on playing off the WD Green?

WD Green is designed for secondary storage and some people experience slow-downs due to the spindown feature of the drive. It takes some time afterwards to spin up again. This would be the only problem you might experience with this particular drive. Other than that it should work just fine.

The suggestion to first try out games off the WD Green is great (no need to throw money on new parts if not needed).

The GPT formatting is nothing complicated - just switch the format from the BIOS and you are done (as long as your BIOS/MOBO supports it).

Upgrading from WD Green to a SATA 3, 7,200rpm drive would speed things a bit but not significantly.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions

Captain_WD

Jackietools · Oct 22, 2014

My question still is the process to clone my old 2 TB to the 3 TB drive. I am going to clone the 2TB from the PC to an external HDD holder. Do I first format the 3 TB in GPT then run the cloning program? When I put the newly cloned 3TB HDD back in the PC replacing the old 2 TB will I encounter any problems now that is GPT formatted and the old one was NTFS? Thanks

Captain_WD · Oct 23, 2014

Jackietools :

Yes, you need to set up the drive as GPT first.
GPT and MBR (the choices that you have in the BIOS for a certain drive) are partition table formats. NTFS, FAT32, HFS+ etc. are file system formats. The GPT/MBR choice depends on the type of drive and the BIOS that you are using. The NTFS/FAT32/etc. depends on what OS you are using and what type of files you are recording. Windows uses NTFS to read/write while MACs use HFS+. Sometimes an OS can only read a certain type of format and cannot write on it.

Instead of cloning the 2TB drive on an external drive and then clone back to the 3TB drive, I would suggest simply plugging in the 3TB drive, formatting it as GPT from the BIOS and setting it as slave and then just clone from one internal to the other. This shouldn't be a problem if you have free SATA ports on the MOBO and just avoid an additional cloning process.

Do have in mind that when cloning, it is highly recommended that you clone to a simmilar or larger in capacity drive, otherwise you are risking data corruption and errors.

Captain_WD.

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Going from NTFS to GPT

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