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?
7 Answers
Just run "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo.exe", go to "Components > Storage > Disks" 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.
On x64 you need to run msinfo32
4In 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 53688139776You 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.
I use the Paragon Alignment Tool, which comes with Paragon products, or can be bought seperately.
To check alignment, start "wmic" with admin rights, and enter command "partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index"
(wmic is available in Win7, possibly Vista)
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.
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.
