Disk Partition Alignment

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/rubenspruijt/archive/2010/11/27/vdi-and-storage-deep-impact.aspx

• Misaligned partitions result in additional disk IOPS, sometimes double
• Windows XP and older creates misaligned partitions by default
• Newer Windows and Linux OS's create properly aligned partitions

In a command shell with admin privileges:

wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

If the number isn’t a multiple of 65536 (64 kB) or 1048576 (1 MB) the partition is unaligned.