Formatting Internal Hard Drive

Question

I've been told that I should use Disk Utility to erase my internal hard drive before I restore it from a cloned copy on my external hard drive. When I open Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD, then click Erase, it asks me to choose a "Volume Format." I assume I should just go with the default setting, Mac OS Extended. But I was advised to format my external hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
So I did a little research. It sounds like Journaled is preferred because it helps prevent corruption...but it apparently also impedes performance somewhat - I guess. Then I learned that you can use Disk Utility to Enable or Disable Journaling.
In summary, I'm more confused than ever. For my internal hard drive (Macintosh HD), should I choose Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? And after I get my computer up and running again, is it OK to enable and disable journaling on my main hard drive? What would I actually accomplish by doing so?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi David Blomstrom;
When journaling was implemented in OS X, I did some testing to find out exactly how much of a performance hit it would cause. After some fairly extensive testing I discovered the performance hit for journaling was significantly less then the variability in the test. Or to say it another way I was unable to detect it. It was that small. After those test I tend to use it just about everywhere. That small of a penalty is worth the protection it gives in my opinion.
Allan