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Partition utility with precise position control down to the sector?


spinjector

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Hi all,

Does anyone know of a partition management utility that allows precise positioning of partitions, right down to a specific sector...? Independently of what it thinks are "cylinder boundaries"...?

I ask in light of this Microsoft white paper: "Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server" http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx

This document essentially states that the idea of positioning partitions at cylinder boundaries has been useless since hard disk sizes passed the 8.4 GB barrier. Cylinder boundaries don't even exist any more, due the proprietary disk structures devised by manufacturers. It also explains that a properly aligned partition is a healthy thing for *any* operating system, not just Microsoft SQL servers.

The document also openly admits that Microsoft & Windows has been doing it wrong all this time, thus perpetuating the misunderstanding. It's only with Windows 2008 & Windows 7 that Microsoft dispenses with the whole cylinder boundary concept.

So...

I'm hoping to find a utility that will allow me to move/resize existing partitions right down to the exact sector I want, without yelling at me about cylinder boundaries.

I've *created* my partitions where I want them, but if I have to *resize* any of them, my cluster alignment will go to heck.

Thanks.

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Thanks. This is why I affectionately refer to Vista as "ME2"... =-)

Yep but the problem is actually in the change, which happened with Vista and is kept with 2008 and Windows 7, but that XP does not "like/understand".

I guess one of the very rare occasions in which Vista itself is innocent. :angel

jaclaz

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  • 5 months later...

Diskpar does it (Dispart is more recent and less usable):

https://kb.wisc.edu/images/group14/4556/diskpar.exe

it runs on Win, so you need several computers.

Howto:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb643096.aspx

0 is the first disk, 1 the second...

The starting offset is in sectors

The volume size is in 2**20 bytes (MiB)

It worked for me on Compact Flash Cards (but does it help, since the Wear Levelling Algorithm shuffles everything?) and should be even more useful on Raid arrays.

Disks over 2TB will have sectors of 4kiB instead of 512B... How all this software will work then is just a surprise...

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