Question about SSD alignment/partitioning.

O

o2taku

Weaksauce
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Apr 23, 2008
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Hey - so I just upgraded my Vertex 2 120gb in my laptop to a 240gb Vertex 2. I transferred everything over using the Windows 7 built in backup tool. However, I noticed it makes a partition equivalent to the old 120gb. This leaves me with another 120gb blank partition. I realized the management options do not allow a merge. I do plan on reformatting down the road, but I have a few questions:

1) Is the hard drive aligned? I'm not sure how the Windows 7 backup tool works. Does it matter that I'm using the same model but of different capacity?

2) Are there any tools to merge partitions? If so, are there any downfalls compared to a standard reformat?

With that being said, if I do format:

3) Does it matter if I partition it into say, 60gb and 180gb? I assume it only matters how much overall free space is left, rather than the individual partitions (for keeping the SSD fast)?

Thanks.
 
Can't you eliminate the unused partition and extend the origional partition after that?
 
Old Hippie said:
Can't you eliminate the unused partition and extend the origional partition after that?
Click to expand...

This...you should be able to extend the existing partition using the built-in Windows tools (Disk Management - or is it Drive Management, I can never remember?).
 
Download gparted live cd. It is a free linux-based GUI that will allow you to resize partitions (including NTFS).
 
Thanks, I downloaded PartedMagic and used Gparted which worked.

I would have expected Windows 7 to let me expand it, but I looked it up earlier and apparently it does not allow you to for some reason. Trying it of course verified this.
 
AS SSD is probably the easiest way to see if your partition is properly aligned to your SSD. It shows the offset in with the partition data, and colors it red or green depending on if it's correct or not.
 
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