Different question about 3TB HDD formatting

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Rainier Alexander

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Feb 11, 2014
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Boring Disclaimer: [strike]I love this site and I'm wary to start topics that have answers already. I've looked through everything and not found this particular question about the GPT issue and such.[/strike]

My Windows 8.1 Installation is running swimmingly with 2 SSDs and I'm over the moon. However, as I'm working on a YouTube channel, I require space so I got a 3TB HDD. I've read all these threads about GPT, but I don't see what the big fascination is. I'd like to ask the community's opinion on GPT in general. Do I even want that? I don't really care if my stuff is in a 3tb block or not. I've read how some people had trouble or even lost their data with GPT.

Here's the bottom line: I don't need some specific set up. If there is a way to partition this drive into 1TB and 2TB, in some safe vanilla way, so I wouldn't need GPT or any of that, then I'd really like to just do that. I don't care how many drive letters are on my computer. I dont even use Desktop. I basically live my life in the MyPC screen and direct explorer shortcuts to drives and folders.

I plugged in my new drive, and in Disk Management for format it's only giving the NTFS option. What is that, and how can I split my HDD into 2tb and 1tb, or even 3x 1TB? I don't care about GPT or fancy things, I just want safe and simple!

Ty so much for putting up with all this text. Much love to this site!
 
Solution
SchizTech
NTFS and GPT/MBR are different things entirely. NTFS refers to the file system (the way Windows organizes files on the disk, more or less). NTFS is the Windows default, and it's the same regardless of the underlying partition scheme. GPT and MBR are partition schemes. To use the full extent of a disk larger than 2.2TB, GPT is a requirement, regardless of how it's partitioned. If you use that 3TB as MBR, you can't use more than 2.2TB (the remainder will sit unused).
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SchizTech

SchizTech

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Jan 16, 2011
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NTFS and GPT/MBR are different things entirely. NTFS refers to the file system (the way Windows organizes files on the disk, more or less). NTFS is the Windows default, and it's the same regardless of the underlying partition scheme. GPT and MBR are partition schemes. To use the full extent of a disk larger than 2.2TB, GPT is a requirement, regardless of how it's partitioned. If you use that 3TB as MBR, you can't use more than 2.2TB (the remainder will sit unused).
 
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Rainier Alexander

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Feb 11, 2014
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Thanks for taking the time!

I'm freaking out GPT because people have reported that it lost their data!!! Also, it seems pretty complicated to set up (ashamed shamed to say this!)
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Dec 7, 2009
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Everything has lost data at some point.

There are hundreds of millions of people using GPT. And the vast majority of us have never lost data.

Remember that this is the internet. Most people on the internet are pretty clueless about the technology that they are using. Especially when it gets down to things like GPT. Most people have never even heard of it. I would say better than 99% of the people using it have never heard of it.

There is a funny thing about computers. When something does not work well, it either gets fixed or replaced relatively quickly. Because for some reason, we like things that work.
 
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