Default Partition offset with Windows Server 2008 is 1024 KB. For systems from which high performance is required, it is essential to experiment with representative workloads and determine the validity of disk partition alignment for your environment. Our SQL Team requested for 64 Bit partition for better I/O performance on the data drives of the SQL servers.

Here is a template for using diskpart.exe to perform partition alignment, assign a drive letter, and format a partition.

Command Line Syntax
Diskpart
list disk
select disk <DiskNumber>
create partition primary align=<Offset_in_KB>
assign letter=<DriveLetter>
format fs=ntfs unit=64K label=”<label>” nowait

Here is an example in which the F: drive is created on disk 3, aligned with an offset of 1,024 KB, and formatted with a file allocation unit (cluster) size of 64 KB.
Command Line Syntax
C:\>diskpart
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: ASPIRINGGEEK
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn GPT
——– ———- ——- ——- — —
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 100 GB 0 B
Disk 2 Online 120 GB 0 B
Disk 3 Online 150 GB 150 GB
DISKPART> select disk 3
Disk 3 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> create partition primary align=1024
DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.
DISKPART> assign letter=F
DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.
DISKPART> format fs=ntfs unit=64K label=”MyFastDisk” nowait

 

Thanks,
Winteladmin