New Win 7 build on HDD, then clone to SSD, anything about alignment?

[Maverick2002]

I started reading this: http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/20/aligning-filesystems-to-an-ssds-erase-block-size/

And then my head started spinning. I sort of get drive/partition alignment, but is it really an issue with Windows 7?

I plan on doing a Windows 7 build on an HDD and then cloning to an SSD (don't ask why). Do I need to worry about alignment at all? I use Acronis for this. From what I read it's only a problem on XP and maybe Vista?

TIA!

 

[razel]

The cloning software is the big question mark. Depending on the settings you use when you clone, you could lose the alignment. I have used free and minimal versions of Acronis for cloning and I can't remember the exact options I chose that kept the alignment.

Win7 itself has image cloning and I have yet to lose alignment using it. Some have run into major problems, but I haven't. I advise that just before you're ready to clone, shrink the partition in Win's Disk Manager to size below the SSD's capacity, then use Win7's imager to clone your drive. I ran into an issue going from a larger drive (500GB with 36GB used) to a smaller SSD (80GB). Even though the total image size would fit perfectly fine in the smaller SSD, the Win7 cloner would complain. Shrinking the partition made it work.

 

[Maverick2002]

I just do a standard clone disk in True Image Home 2010, without any crazy options. It's only going to be 1 partition (plus maybe that 100mb one that W7 creates, if it creates one). I always do a manual/as-is clone so the partition stays the same - the only thing that changes is the amount of the unpartitioned free space which depends on the size of the drive. So because I don't need to resize anything, I should be ok right?

 

[jjmIII]

Win7 / SSD clones seem like more trouble than its worth. It takes 10min. to do a fresh install on SSD....and you know it's right then.

 

[Maverick2002]

That's not always a possibility, especially when you deploy a prebuilt install of Windows with programs, which does not take 10 minutes.