Windows 10 & Hard Drive Configuration(s)

I plan to build my first Windows 10 PC in the near future.

What is the best way to setup the hard drives?

I plan to, for sure, use a 2.5 inch internal SSD for the Windows OS.

I plan to have at least three (3) 3.5 inch platter hard drives for data backup (Each 2 TB or Greater in Size).

Do I setup the drives as MBR or GPT. I have no experience at all with GPT. However, I do see that if you want a > 2TB Hard Drive you most likely need GPT.

What are your recommendations regarding MBR or GPT?

Is it possible to do MBR on the SSD and GPT on the remaining hard drives?

I like to keep things ‘simple’.

Thanks in Advance.

 

If you have UEFI-compatible motherboard just use GPT on all drives. GPT nor MBR are not filesystems, so they don't matter that much. Basically it stores where partition begins and ends on the drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#Windows:_64-bit_versions

 

UEFI is the future. Intel will not support installing OS in MBR mode on new MBs after 2020.

 

Why use the 2.5 SSD, why not 3.5 SSD?

 

I didn't realize that there was a 3.5 SSD size. However, I did a spot check on Newegg and they seem pricey and there aren't that many choices.

 

Buy neither. Look at a M.2 NVMe SSD. Much faster.

 

Brian - you always go the extra mile to help out people, your hard work here is always appreciated

 

To clarify: booting is going to be not possible on newer PCs, but external hard drivers partitioned using MBR are going to work. Anyway it would be better to use GPT, except somebody wants to connect them also to really old OSes (Windows XP or older).

Does it matter? I understand that this may have some merit for HDD (bigger radius at the same angular velocity = bigger velocity). It doubt it matters when it comes to SSDs.