Disk Management Makes 'Correctly' Aligned Partitions?

Question

I am adding a SSD to my computer which will eventually become my system drive. The new disk will need to be initialized with Disk Management, and once this is done the disk space will show "RAW". If I then right-click on the empty space and select "Create a simple partition", will Disk Management create a partition that is 'correctly' aligned for my SSD, e.g., at LBA 2048?

I realize I can do this with my Windows 7 setup CD, but I need to update the SSD's firmware before putting it into service, so it has to be 'visible' to my existing Windows 7.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Upon further research I learned that by default, Windows 7 will align the beginning of a partition to a 4K boundary. Specifically, the first partition will start at LBA 2048 [CHS 0/32/33], and all following partitions will also be aligned to a 4K boundary.

The link below points to a blog post by some character named Steven Sinofsky, wherein he states:

"Since SSDs tend to perform at their best when the operating system’s partitions are created with the SSD’s alignment needs in mind, all of the partition-creating tools in Windows 7 place newly created partitions with the appropriate alignment."

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Answer 2

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community Forum. As you want to know more about the Disk management, visit this link:

Create and format a hard disk partition

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Create-and-format-a-hard-disk-partition

Hope this information helps. If you have further questions feel free to reply and we would be glad to assist.

Answer 3

Hi,

 

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community Forum. As you want to know more about the Disk management...

 

No, I do not want to know more about Disk Management.

It is not at all helpful to answer my specific question with generic information, particularly when the generic information makes absolutely no reference to the subject of my question.