# SSD - 96MB Offset?



## Funkengreuven (Sep 26, 2012)

I bought a new 520 Intel 240GB SSD and it comes with the "Powered by Acronis" data migration software. I used it to clone & migrate the entire contents of my Vertex3 240G SSD to the Intel 240GB. Afterward, I look at the Intel volume/partitions in Diskpart. There's the 95MB system reserve aligned at 1024K. But the primary partition is 223GB with a 96MB offset??? What's up with this? I've heard of 1024, 4096, etc., but 96MB?

Am I missing something here? How do I fix this? Can I realign the partition without having to clean the disk & start all over with a fresh install of windows? Any help would be greatly appreciated...


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## Steevo (Sep 26, 2012)

System reserved is your boot files, and your primary is the windows installation. Its OK.


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## Funkengreuven (Sep 26, 2012)

I guess I'm confusing "offset" with "alignment"? Maybe 1024 Offset for Primary Partition with Size of 95MB + 1MB Spacing = 96MB Offest for partition 2?

If this is the case, does the inital offset of 1024KB for partition 1 mean the entire drive is aligned at 1024KB?

What's the difference between alignment & offset? Are the terms interchangeable? My primary concern is I've read that 1024 (or some divisible number) is optimal for SSD alignment, but I don't understand how that applies to multiple partitions on the same drive.


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## cadaveca (Sep 26, 2012)

you could always do it right, and do a fresh OS install on the new SSD, and let Windows manage all that for you.


When SSDs first came out, they didn't last too long, and performance degraded quite quickly as they were filled with data. They were also very expensive, and very small.

Today, it's not the same thing, and many guides written for SSD use just do not apply today. SSDs now have better garbage collection, or use TRIM to stay fast, and the life of SSDs is typically longer than a mechanical drive, even without doing all that mumbo-jumbo about moving wondows files, and turning off indexing, alignment, or whatever.

The only thing you need to do now, is make sure disk defrag is not auto-enabled on a schedule.


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