Windows 7: SSD Alignment

I have a question, mine shows the 100MB mini default partition as the one with the 1024KB offset, and the 111GB partition having 101MB offset, it did this all by default. Is this right or not?

It seems like the larger 111GB partition should be the one with the 1024 offset? I'm not sure if this matters or not.

The only program I know that will align a partition without disturbing the data is from Paragon ( Paragon Alignment Tool - Overview ). But they want $30 and I did not see a trial.
But it seems to be pretty common that the second partition on a SSD is not properly aligned - which, of course, is not good. But with Diskpart, you can only align the whole volume.

I dunno about lucky, whs.

MS deliberately set Vista alignment that way.

Unless you want to shell out for PAT ( works very well, btw ), you could try this:

Image your main partition with macrium/paragon.

Delete the main partition with diskpart from 7 dvd.

Create new main partition with alignment you want - still using Diskpart.

Restore the image you made to that new partition.

See if the alignment is retained - I expect it will be.

Before you do that- you need to ask:

If 1024 is divisible by 4, is 101 x 1024 also divisible by 4 ?

1024 multiplied with any number is divisible by 4. But what does that tell me? Are you suggesting that the 101 offset of the second partition is OK?

I will say that my write speeds are up there with what everyone else shows. The SSD works flawlessy, not to mention all my WEI scores "winsat SSD test" were in the mid to high 7's.

I would think that Windows 7 would get this right since it's a default installation on a new SSD.

1024*101= 103,424/4= 25,856

It would seem silly if I needed to omit the 100MB boot partition just to get the alignment right.

Windows should be getting this right by default because it was made to work with SSD's.

After doing some reading I found out that in fact Windows did get right by starting the alignment with the 100MB boot partition.

It has to be a multiple of 64. that is 64,128...1024,2048 etc.
Very crudely put, SSD write in 64 blocks. If your alignment is 63 (as set by Acronis) each write/read will span two blocks etc. Hence the so called 50% inefficiency.

For example, if you do a freah install of Win 7 on a fresh SSD, Win 7 will create a initial partition of 100MB with the correct alignment. all subsequent partitions (C Drive etc.) will follow this initial partition set in full MB multiples- hence preserving the 64bit multiple alignment/ offset.
I have attached a copy of my properly aligned/offset SSD drive.
AttachmentSizeSSDOffset.jpg

From the Acronis site.> Is everyone exaggerating the steps for SSD alignment when upgrading to an SSD? | Knowledge Base

What about an ssd raid 0. Of course you break the raid and follow the tut that the barefoot kid wrote and completely erase them with diskpart, then what before you combine the two ssd's, do you align them first or after you create the raid? My raid 0 is rating a 7.8 on the wei scale as of now but I'm not sure know after reading this that I have doubts now.

seth, I am not 100% certain because I have never aligned a Raid0. But I would say, if you align them independently, you cannot go wrong.

Thanks whs appreciate the reply I will do that and use disk part after creating the raid to partition the raid for Windows 7...also it makes sense you would do this before joining the two ssd's they would match perfectly, but it would probably be a good idea to do it again when the raid is created because the raid creation destroys all partitions...

Yesterday I done a fresh windows 7 installation on my 64GB SSD. I was reading and following all these neat tutorials and I found this thread.

After the installation completed I had my os partition with an offset of 101MB. I bought for £15 the Paragon Alignment Tool 2.0 hoping that it could fix the "problem" but actually it just told me everything was fine and the os partition was aligned perfectly. The only drive not aligned was the usb pen.

At the end I asked for a refund (received within 30mins).


Cheers.

L.