Cloning XP onto an SSD and Alignment 2

[goombawaho]

I've got someone that needs to preserve an XP machine for a certain program and wants to do an SSD to make it run better. They don't want to do Windows 7 XP mode. I know I can clone the XP over to the SSD using various tools, no problem. But what's the deal with aligning the partition? I'm not clear on whether that's required or a good idea and whether I can do the clone and then align with XP intact. Any good links?

I still live in a mostly XP world.

 

[BadBigBen]

I am not sure, if you are aware about the standard differences in the cluster sizes (alignment), XP uses standard a 512KB cluster size and the SSD's use a 4k cluster size. Now if one clones, a one to one copy, the cluster size of the old HDD usually gets transferred thus the an unaligned copy gets made, causing the SSD usually to be a tad slower due to recalculations etc.

This can be avoided, if you choose a cloning/imaging software that does it for you, e.g. o&o Migration Kit 7. I've used it's predecessor to great success, both with XP and Win7...

I hope this was a bit helpful to you...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[BadBigBen]

I messed up a bit in the above thread, alignment is about where the partitions start at the boundaries on the pages on an SSD...

I could post you the link to a German website that explains it nicely, but even Google Translate would have problems...

so basically I can tell you, besides the above cloning app, is that GParted does this automagically, and using the DISKPART command you can find out if they are aligned:

on a shell, enter DISKPART, then with list disk you can see which drive is the SSD, then use select disk N (where N is the number of the disk you want to take a look at), then issue the command list partition and you will get lots of information, take a closer look at what is written under OFFSet, if that is divisible through 4 (e.g. 32 / 4 = 8) then the partitions are aligned...





Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, I had read a web page and gotten that much information about the 512 vs. 4 cluster size and the partition start.

The main questions is, is that fixable after the fact? This page seems informative and it even has some German on it for BBB.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1226963/how-to-properly-re-align-your-ssd-hdd-partitions

Looks like I can fix it with this tool. I was going to go with an Intel SSD anyway because of their toolbox features that take care of TRIM being not available in XP.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...adType=Utilities,+Tools+and+Examples&lang=eng

 

[BadBigBen]

As to your main question, from what I read sofar, yes it is fixable after the fact. But you will only really know once you tried it...

Personally, I have no experience with this, due to the fact that I've not transferred an XP install unto an SSD before. As to the tool from Intel, I wish other manufacturers would supply their own, as most do not, but at least they keep coming with firmware fixes. Had a customer that wanted a particular drive only, and then a RAID 5 setup using four of them, the LSI Controller would detect the drives or not (resetting would usually fix the issue), firmware update and no problems thereafter...

Now the Intel SSD's are solid, not the fastest out there, but the user will not notice unless he runs benchmarks... Good choice in my book...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Well, it's not a crisis because I'll be able to get it cloned no problem and have the original mechanical hard drive if things just don't work. Working on a copy is not the same as working on the original!!! Much less worry.

 

[BadBigBen]

>> Much less worry.

True... Having the HDD as a back-up if things turn south, sure is a relief... Good luck with it, and do let me know if you had to align the partition and if it worked...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Need to get approval from the customer first. There's an internal battle brewing between two people - replace computer vs. upgrade. I'd like to upgrade it because it's more "techy" vs. throwing a new machine at the problem.

 

[cdogg]

XP uses standard a 512KB cluster size...

Doesn't this depend on the file system? The default cluster size for any NTFS partition 2 GB or larger is 4KB. It doesn't matter if you're in XP, Vista, or Win 7. Am I missing something?

I was not aware that cloning an XP partition over to SSD was an issue. But now that Goom has brought it up, I can see there are a lot of hits on Google about it.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[goombawaho]

It's an issue with where the partition starts and if it becomes offset, it requires multiple disc accesses where only one would be required normally. See this article for some info.

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/221411en?language=en_US

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235277/Paragon_Alignment_Tool.html

 

[cdogg]

Thanks Goom, for asking the question in the first place. I seriously had no clue the issue even existed.

As for anyone else stumbling across this thread like I did, here are some additional articles you may find useful:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/advanced-format-4k-sector-size-hard-drive,2759.html

(Discusses performance hit)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009

(Microsoft's notice, shows you how to check your drive's current config)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018

(MS patch for newer OS's)



-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, I was blissfully ignorant until I saw a note that came with a new Dell computer that talked about it. In fact, here's a link with what Dell has to say.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?docid=408172

I spend my time fixing old junk instead of looking at what's new.