Dell PowerVault MD3000i Tuning Manual page 26

Dell™ PowerVault MD3000 and MD3000i Array Tuning Best Practices
Microsoft provides the diskpar.exe utility as part of the Microsoft Windows 2000
Resource Kit, which was renamed to diskpart.exe in Microsoft Windows 2003
and later. Microsoft has a KB article 929491 covering this, and Dell™ always
recommends checking for proper partition alignment to the stripe size of
assigned virtual disks. Using these utilities, the starting sector in the master boot
record can be set to a value that ensures sector alignment for all I/Os. Use a
multiple of 64, such as 64 or 128. Applications such as Microsoft Exchange count
on proper partition alignment to the disk stripe boundary.
For Microsoft's usage details about diskpart.exe, go to
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995867.aspx.
WARNING: Changes made to the alignment of existing partitions will destroy
data.
December 2008 – Revision A01 Page 26