Low performance on a Vertex 3 SSD

If you started from a blank drive and let Windows 7 create the partitions as it was being set up then chances are your drive is already properly aligned.

Basically you want to see that the partitions start at approximately 1MB into the disk.

From the TechPowerUp SSD Alignment Calculator you can find out using MSinfo

Start -> Run -> msinfo32.  
In MSInfo: Components -> Storage -> Disks -> Partition Starting Offset

In that field you'd want to see something like 1048576 which is 1MB.

This question seems to state that another way to see if your drive is properly aligned is to use GParted (a linux LiveCD) to tell whether the drive is aligned.

As to how to align the disk it seems that lifehacker has a guide on how to do it using GParted

Mokubai

Posted 2011-12-01T12:01:28.603

Reputation: 64 434

"Partition Starting Offset 105 906 176 bytes" – blez – 2011-12-01T12:39:58.177

That sounds about right for a partition that is exactly 101MB (105,906,176 / 1024 / 1024 = 101) into the disk, I would hope that you have a 100MB "boot" partiton on the disk as well as that one so the space is not wasted, but to me your current partition is correctly aligned. – Mokubai – 2011-12-01T12:43:14.427

It has 100mb boot partition. So everything looks ok? – blez – 2011-12-02T00:31:17.127

Yes, your partitions look to be properly aligned but your write speed does look a bit on the low side according to the website specifications. I do not know what is causing that but I am certain it is not the drive alignment. Have you tried a different benchmark program? – Mokubai – 2011-12-02T07:26:19.837

Low performance on a Vertex 3 SSD

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