Win XP Partition Alignment on SSD

Ron:

There are a lot of threads on the Acronis Forum Archive that discuss this issue. Basically, here is what happens. If you restore a single partition or partitions, then TI writes a new entry in the partition table for each restored partition, and it does this according to the older, established partitioning rules. In other words, the partitions will be aligned on cylinder boundaries and will have an offset of 63 sectors. This is not the best alignment for an SSD.

However, if your image is of the entire disk, and you restore the entire disk at once by putting a checkmark next to the disk number, then TI will use the partition table from the saved image. So if you have an SSD set up with the desired alignment and then you create a full-disk image, that full-disk image can then be restored and the existing alignments will be preserved.

We are all hoping that the next version of TI will allow user-selectable partition alignment; not only for SSDs but also for Vista and Windows 7 systems that use the newer partitioning standard of 2048-sector offset.

Mark,

Thanks.  I'm thinking of backup routine here..... would the alignments also be preserved when cloning from drive A => drive B, and back from drive B=>A, even if one of the drives was not an SSD?

Also, would the performance of a platter drive with XP be changed if it were set up with the partition alignment which is good for an SSD?  Or, no difference?

Ron:

As long as you are doing an operation that does not involve modification of the partition table then any partition alignment in the source should be preserved in the clone. The practical ramifications of this are that you cannot resize partitions either larger or smaller when cloning; the "clonee" must be the same size as the "cloner". Any change in size requires that TI modify the partition table, and it will do so using the older partitioning rules. That does not prevent you, however, from cloning a 64 GB SSD to a 320 GB hard disk. You will end up with 64 GB used space on the hard disk and the rest unallocated. I'm not sure what will happen going in the other direction, but I think it will work.

I would think that imaging is more appropriate and will result in files that are smaller than the source disk due to compression and the fact that TI does not copy hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys into the image (only placeholders of the appropriate size).

I doubt that different alignments will change the performance of a platter drive, unless you are setting up a striped RAID array. In that case, alignment of the stripe size with the cluster size and offset does make a big difference. I'm not an expert on this subject by any means, so you may want to look for articles on technical enthusiast sites like Anandtech.com or equivalent.

Thanks Mark.  Using an SSD with XP, I'd have to make a note not to screw up and lose the partition alignment or else have to re-establish from scratch...  Sure hope all that fussin' is worth it... :>)

Cloning doesn't work.

I'm using Acronis True Image Home.

I do Clone Disk, then Automatic, then I choose the Source Hard Disk, hit Next.

It nows asks for the Target Hard Disk.

But now it's locked up. It won't let me choose Disk 2 (which is an SSD, but working perfectly fine).

The only thing it will do is to allow mw to Cancel.

I want to clone one disk to another. How do I do thing? I am using WinXP.

Harry:

Are you doing this from the Windows version of TI or from the boot CD? Whichever method you are using, try the other. If you are using TI Home 2009, download the latest version of the bootable recovery environment from your account on the Acronis web page, under Your Registered Products.

Hello all,

Harry, could you please let me know the build number of the product, which you can find in the Help -> About dialog (it should be a 3 or 4 digit number)?

Also, Mark's suggestion is good - please download the latest version of ISO file, burn it to the CD and clone from it.

Please refer to this article for detailed information on how to burn ISO image to CD.

Thank you.

When installing WinXP on an SSD... if one were to align the partition on the SSD and format.. then restore an image to the partition created... then make an image of the "just restored image + partition alignment", would the partition alignment be preserved?  This would be much quicker and easier than "align partition, then install WinXP + apps from scratch"... ??

Ron:

Unfortunately, no. Formatting a partition before restoring an image is an exercise in futility. The first thing TI does when restoring is to delete the existing partition, so there goes your formatting.

The issue with TI and alignment is that TI uses the established partitioning standards which state that partitions should start and end on cylinder boundaries. Thus, the first partition on the disk will start at sector 63. Unless TI 2010 has changed this behavior, it isn't possible to restore with the newer Vista/Windows 7 alignment where the first partition starts at sector 2048. Any operation that requires TI to modify the partition table, either by creating a new entry or by resizing an existing entry, will be done with the 63-sector offset rules.

The only way around this with TI is to restore an entire disk as-is. If an entire disk restore is done that includes all partitions and makes no modifications to the size and/or location of the partitions, then TI will use the partition table from the image file. Thus, if the image file was created from a disk with some other alignment, the alignment will be preserved in the restored disk.

So to answer your question, it isn't possible to use TI to set up an SSD with non-63-sector alignment; you have to do this with other tools. This will usually involve creating partitions with the desired alignment, installing Windows, and installing applications. Once set up, however, you can make an image of the entire disk with TI. If and only if you restore the entire disk image as-is with no changes will the original alignment be preserved.

Unless TI 2010 has changed this, but I doubt it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If I'm reading you correctly.... then that infers that if my original, "aligned partition image" was made on a 64G SSD... I would not be able to upgrade to a 128GB SSD while maintaining the original partition alignment... If I replace the SSD, I'd need to do so with another 64GB??... if that's the case, probably should replace it with the same model...

Ron:

That depends. TI wouldn't preserve your existing alignment if you make changes to the partition size or location when restoring.

What alignment are you currently using? If it's 2048 sectors then couldn't you restore an image of the 64 GB SSD to the 128 GB SSD as a whole-disk image? You'd end up with an aligned 64 GB partition and 64 GB of unallocated space. Then you could use Vista or Windows 7 Disk Management to expand the partition size to 128 GB.

I haven't tried this but in theory it should work if you use 2048-sector alignment. For others you'd have to use a different tool.

Mark,

I'm not using any alignment.. I don't have an SSD yet. 

My Acronis image and clone routine works just find with my platter drives on XP... just wondering whether it's worth the hassle for the improved performance.

Thanks..

 SUCCESS. ACronis True Image Home actually clones your hard disk. 

The ONLY way to use Acronis True Image is to create what Acronis calls a Bootable Rescue Media, which is a fancy name for a CD running Linux. You do this through Tools. 

You attach a second hard drive to your PC or laptop -- typically using the USB port. 

Then you place the Acronis Linux CD into your CD and reboot your computer. 

Hopefully it will boot off the CD and -- with your instructions -- perfectly clone your main hard drive to your external USB-connected hard drive. This works perfectly with SSDs (solid state hard drives) and spinning platter ones.

I'm adding this comment as a public service. Acronis' instructions are awful. Its menu structure is awful. And it took days and days to figure this out.

By the way, you must buy (i.e. pay for) Acronis True Image Home. Despite the fact that Acronis says the demo is a full working version of the software, it's not.

Thanks for the input, Harry.  However, your point is a bit different than the issue being tossed around here...

Finally got an SSD... Intel X25-M. Copied this quote from The Tech Report...

"... One solution to XP's default partition offset is to create partitions manually with a custom offset. Doing so is possible using a Diskpart utility available from Microsoft. Such tweaking isn't necessary for all SSDs, though. When asked whether the X25-M takes XP's 63-sector offset into account, Intel told us that its SSD tech is alignment-agnostic, just as long as there's some alignment present in the operating system...."

Apparently partition alignment doesn't matter with the X25-M... but what is meant by "some alignment present in the OS"? Does XP have "some alignment"??

Update....

Cloned my HDD onto X-25M G2 (so no partition alignment), with the following Crystal Diskmarks...

265.9 / 92.2
209.2 / 91.3
23.5 / 61.5

Then, I did a test where I aligned the partition and did a fresh install of XP, SP3.
Crystal Diskmarks were similar except 4K writes were 68.0 MBs

Intel claims X-25M is "agnostic" about partition alignment, so I think I'll use it non-aligned for now... makes cloning and imaging the same as I'm used to...

FWIW...

Ron:

That's pretty amazing performance. Bet you're happy...

Well....

So far, I'd have to say my rig is not significantly faster overall. My boot time decreased from about 55 seconds to about 45. And if other functions are faster, not by much... except for one noticeable thing. I can copy my 160MB stock market data files (about 1500 files, half of which are < 1K in size), in 3 seconds.

Verdict... upgrade to SSD not worth the cost. (Gee, glad I bought only 3, X-25Ms... :>)