How to check the partition alignment on an SSD drive?

Question

As I understand it, for SSD it's important to have partitions starting at the proper offset (i.e. correctly aligned). How can I check this offset under Windows Vista?

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 21 '24 at 19:39

17

Just run msinfo32 and find "Partition Starting Offset". It will be in bytes, divide the number by 512 to convert into sectors. On my SSD it is 1MB (1 048 576 bytes), but as far as i know, 128k is enough.

edited Jan 21 '24 at 19:39

Community

1

answered May 17 '10 at 15:33

Nishi

580
3
9

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On my Windows 7 x64 system it is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo\msinfo32.exe – peter_mcc Dec 21 '11 at 21:53
On my Windows XP Pro x32 system it is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo\msinfo32.exe too. Can't remember if it's part of the original XP install or not. – n611x007 Oct 13 '13 at 10:06
1

With Windows, 4k alignment is enough because NTFS does not have any periodic structure larger than the cluster size (unlike, say, ext2) – kinokijuf Aug 05 '15 at 12:03
3

It's always msinfo32. Just type msinfo32 at a Run prompt (Windows-R). It's in your path. No need to go digging through directories. – Jamie Hanrahan Feb 11 '16 at 05:36

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 11 '16 at 02:47

6

In Windows XP:

> diskpart -i <disk number>

should show HiddenSectors divisible by 64 and StartingOffest divisible by 32768

In Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10:

> E:\Home>wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index
BlockSize Index Name StartingOffset
512 0 Disk #1, Partition #0 1048576
512 1 Disk #1, Partition #1 53688139776

edited Feb 11 '16 at 02:47

Kenneth L

13,984

answered Apr 23 '10 at 14:39

Alexey Romanov

2,338

3

diskpart doesn't seem to work that way in WinXP. can you give more details? – quack quixote Apr 23 '10 at 14:53

I had to do a convoluted series of commands on WinXP: diskpart > select disk 1 > list partition

Result:

DISKPART> list partition

 Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
* Partition 1    Primary             49 GB    32 KB
  Partition 2    Extended           883 GB    49 GB
  Partition 3    Logical            883 GB    49 GB</blockquote>

– Syclone0044 Nov 09 '11 at 19:50

That wmic works even on Windows 10 – Csaba Toth May 01 '15 at 15:24

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 16 '13 at 09:13

4

You are right, but it does not work like that on Windows XP. There you can use diskpart:

diskpart -i (number of your ssd)

And you'll get geometry information and disk partition information.

I hope this helps.

edited Jan 16 '13 at 09:13

Marc Climent

345

answered Jul 07 '10 at 06:19

Oscar

41

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '10 at 21:56

2

I use the Paragon Alignment Tool, which comes with Paragon products, or can be bought seperately.

answered Oct 14 '10 at 21:56

paradroid

22,992

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 12 '13 at 00:24

1

To check alignment, start "wmic" with admin rights, and enter command "partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index"

(wmic is available in Win7, possibly Vista)

answered Jan 12 '13 at 00:24

jerryrogersomme

11

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 08 '15 at 20:38

diskpart.exe and diskpar.exe are separate utilities from Microsoft. What is given above works with diskpar.exe only:

diskpar -i x

x as the drive number. You cannot retrieve the offset using diskpart.exe. Use msinfo32.exe as described above

diskpart.exe started be be bundled with Windows 2003 and Vista. diskpar.exe was a standalone utility released at the time of Windows 2000. It still works with Windows 7 and 8.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 16 '15 at 12:43

1

WMI (wmic command) is available in Windows XP (SP3 or may be even early) (as a diskpart.exe btw). So in Windows XP you can use as Msinfo32 as Wmic to check offset. 1024K offset is the best choice for SDD and 4k disks or RAID.

answered Aug 16 '15 at 12:43

DK21102

11

How to check the partition alignment on an SSD drive?

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