Considering purchase off SSD! Follow up

[Jerry]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 11:23:36 -0600 (MDT)
Warren Block articulated:

> On Tue, 9 Oct 2012, Leslie Jensen wrote:
> 
> > Got my new SSD. Have some additional questions.
> >
> > My old disk is MBR partitioned. I want to reserve only a part of
> > the disk for my Win7 installation and in order to do that I must
> > initialise the disk (This is in Windows7).
> >
> > A question comes up about using MBR or GPT (GUID Partition Table)
> >
> > I know I can just go ahead and use MBR but I would like to ask if
> > GPT would be beneficial.
> >
> > Is it possible to use GUID when one has a dual boot system?
> >
> > I presume that FreeBSD can handle GPT but I'm unsure!
> 
> Yes, FreeBSD can handle it.  As usual, Windows is the problem.  From 
> what I've read, only Windows 7 64-bit supports GPT, and then only
> with UEFI.  So it's very likely that MBR is the only practical choice.
> 
> Another trick is that Windows generally only has drivers for what was 
> present when it was installed.  So switching the BIOS to AHCI for
> better performance can result in Windows not booting.  It is possible
> to locate the Windows drivers and install them.
> 
> Otherwise, FreeBSD will work fine without AHCI, disk IO will be just
> a bit slower.

A somewhat more concise discussion of Windows 7 and GPT can be found
here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx

Information on ACHI is available at:

http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/
http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

-- 
Jerry ♔

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