SSD's in Raid 0 - Align??

sequoia464

Senior member
Feb 12, 2003
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I have a couple of sets of SSD's in Raid 0. The first set (C drive) was aligned when i put W7 on it. The others I just set as a raided pair in the bios.

It just dawned on me thay the second and third sets (D and E drives) did not get aligned. Is this necessary??
 

nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
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what do you mean? if you mean what i think, then an SSD's GC will keep your drive clean and running optimal.
 

sequoia464

Senior member
Feb 12, 2003
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I am a bit hazy on exactly why a SSD needs to be aligned, but supposedly they need to be. I think it has something to do with the sectors being aligned correctly. Windows 7 creates a 100 mb reserve automatically that, if I understand correctly, sets up this condition.

I don't really understand why a SSD needs to be aligned, or what it actually does, but I have read, quite often, that this is important in setting up a SSD correctly.

Perhaps someone that knows can describe to you exactly what aligning is and what it does.
 

stevech

Senior member
Jul 18, 2010
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Alignment as I understand is because to support newer large disks, Microsoft changed the allocation unit size such that a sector per se is 4KB now (larger). Not sure how this relates to Linux.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
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Alignment is important for SSDs, to increase their lifespan. If you don't align, they may wear out prematurely.
 

groberts101

Golden Member
Mar 17, 2011
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sequioa, W7 automatically aligns any partition created in disk mgmt to 1024 so it's a non-issue.