Guid or mbr?

[nigelmoxley]

To date I have create 4 Hackintoshes and I have always used an MBR partition table on the HDDs. Installing using Unibeast (which itself is also MBR) requires a HDD partitioned as GUID (or OSX will not install). However when it comes to getting your new OSX HDD to boot on its own it seems to me easier to use MBR. So when I have installed OSX succesfully, I clone it (using Superduper) to another HDD partitioned with MBR. Then after booting to this MBR drive with the Unibeast USB, I run DSDT Free, which installs the same bootloader as Unibeast's. After that I always find my system boots from the HDD. (Basically I don't bother with all this DSDT stuff).

Does anyone have a comment on this?

 

[Going Bald]

To date I have create 4 Hackintoshes and I have always used an MBR partition table on the HDDs. Installing using Unibeast (which itself is also MBR) requires a HDD partitioned as GUID (or OSX will not install). However when it comes to getting your new OSX HDD to boot on its own it seems to me easier to use MBR. So when I have installed OSX succesfully, I clone it (using Superduper) to another HDD partitioned with MBR. Then after booting to this MBR drive with the Unibeast USB, I run DSDT Free, which installs the same bootloader as Unibeast's. After that I always find my system boots from the HDD. (Basically I don't bother with all this DSDT stuff).

Does anyone have a comment on this?

If it makes you happy and works for you, GA.

But, why bother? OS X works just as well on GUID, you have to install it first on a HDD with GUID partition tables and not everyone has the extra HDD to partition MBR. Also, cloning it to MBR, the auto update function won't work, so if you want updates to be downloaded/installed automatically you are out of luck on MBR. (And, yes, I realize it is recommended not to auto update but use combo updates, but still some people prefer the auto update, and if it works for them, more power to them.)

 

[nigelmoxley]

Thanks for the feedback. Each to his own I suppose.
Actually one of the main reasons for me having a Hackintosh is that I can install multiple internal HDDs for data (iMACs and Mac Books have to rely on slower USB or network HDDs). Also I run a small IT business and HDDs in MACs are just as liable to problems as PCs. So cloning and data retrieval is a way of life for me and my Hackintosh is one tool I use frequently.

 

[Going Bald]

So cloning and data retrieval is a way of life for me and my Hackintosh is one tool I use frequently.

GUID drives clone just as easily as MBR one do. SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner both work well - the only thing to remember is to install a boot loader after cloning if you want to boot from the clone.

Also, for people who need large HDDs for storage (2.5Tb and larger) MBR formatting will not work as it has a 2Tb minus 1 byte drive size limitation.

 

[nigelmoxley]

Well GUID is the future, but if you have a non UEFI mobo you have to use MBR.

Actually I discourage my clients from using large HDDs. 10 years ago when HDDs were less than 100Gb they lasted 5-7 years (roughly the lifetime of a desktop). With today's HDDs in the 1-2 Tb range you are lucky if they last 2-3 years - for laptops the situation is even worse (hence the move to solid state drives).

It is always advisable that data is backed up, so more smaller, preferably internal, drives are better than 1 large unreliable drive. Apple MACs do not conform to this. The PCs I supply or upgrade now have 128Gb solid state drives for the OS and software, 2x 500Gb HDDs for 2 redundant copies of important data and then maybe a 1Tb drive for large files such as movies.

Data transfer rates need to be in the back of your mind. I recently had to sort out 2 people who had filled their 1Tb+ iMAC HDDs. To sort them out took hours. Here are typical data transfer rates to be considered:
- USB 2.0 HDD 30MB/s
- Wireless Network 30MB/s
- Wired Network 10-100MB/s
- SATA 2 300MB/s
So to transfer/backup 1Tb to a USB HDD is going to take you the best part of 10 hours. To an internal drive on the SATA bus: 1 hour. Needless to say that if a MAC has more than 300Gb on it's main HDD, Time Machine will just give up the ghost if using a USB or network drive.

 

[Going Bald]

Well GUID is the future, but if you have a non UEFI mobo you have to use MBR.

No you don't. I installed on a GA-EP45-UD3P with a standard legacy BIOS on a 75Gb WD Velociraptor formatted GUID way back in 2009 and my GA-X58A-UD7 has a standard legacy BIOS. UEFI BIOS did not appear until the socket 1155 Ivy Bridge hardware came out and was then retrofitted for the Sandy Bridge boards as a BIOS update.

Actually I discourage my clients from using large HDDs. 10 years ago when HDDs were less than 100Gb they lasted 5-7 years (roughly the lifetime of a desktop). With today's HDDs in the 1-2 Tb range you are lucky if they last 2-3 years - for laptops the situation is even worse (hence the move to solid state drives).

It is always advisable that data is backed up, so more smaller, preferably internal, drives are better than 1 large unreliable drive. Apple MACs do not conform to this. The PCs I supply or upgrade now have 128Gb solid state drives for the OS and software, 2x 500Gb HDDs for 2 redundant copies of important data and then maybe a 1Tb drive for large files such as movies.

Data transfer rates need to be in the back of your mind. I recently had to sort out 2 people who had filled their 1Tb+ iMAC HDDs. To sort them out took hours. Here are typical data transfer rates to be considered:
- USB 2.0 HDD 30MB/s
- Wireless Network 30MB/s
- Wired Network 10-100MB/s
- SATA 2 300MB/s
So to transfer/backup 1Tb to a USB HDD is going to take you the best part of 10 hours. To an internal drive on the SATA bus: 1 hour. Needless to say that if a MAC has more than 300Gb on it's main HDD, Time Machine will just give up the ghost if using a USB or network drive.

I have no problems backing up to a NAS on a gigabit network. OTOH, my system drives with the OS on them are all now either 128Gb SSD or 256 Gb 2.5" laptop drives. Agreed that a smaller drive for the system drive is better, especially if using a platter drive.

 

[nigelmoxley]

I guess I'm wasting my time sharing my experience on this forum.

To those having difficulty booting their OSX installation from HDD with GPT you could try MBR (see previous posts).

To those who have shelled out on an expensive NAS drive, remember that if your computer connects via wireless to your network, the data transfer rate is no better than a USB 2.0 HDD (over 1 hour for 100Gb). Over a gigabit wired connection the transfer rate is at best one third that of an internal SATA drive (over 20mins for 100Gb). These data rates are optimistic figures.

Also if your computer (MAC or PC) or NAS has over a 1Tb HDD in it, expect it to slow up and start to hang after a couple of years before it fails completely. (HDD replacement is a big business activity for me.)

I'll say no more.