diskpart.exe align=? for Exchange 2003

[Joseph Correia]

Hardware is DL380 using SA6400 with 4 - 73Gb SCSI drive setup in a RAID1+0.

Does anyone know what the "recommended" number is for the align=?? switch for DiskPart.exe is?
I'm building an exchange server which has locally attached storage (not san) and I want to align the sectors but I'm not sure if I should use:
align=64 or align=128 or some other number for HP hardware.

[Steven Clementi]

joseph:

Are you talking about DISKPAR.exe?


Though I never used/tested diskpar on a local Smart Array Logical Drive, I do not see why it would not work.

I issue I see though is that there was an HP Customer Advisory requesting that users of the EVA perform the procedure to change the alignment from 63 to 64 on presented vdisks, but did not mention anything on the Smart Array Controller. not sure if there is any performance degradation on a local Smart Array Logical Drive.


DiskparT.exe is used for local disk management, extending disks, etc, not for setting alignment like diskpar.exe


Steven

[Joseph Correia]

This server is running Windows Server 2003, when using Win2000 it was diskpar.exe but on the newer operating system it was changed now you use diskpart.exe to perform expansions as well as alignments.
I'm just trying to determine if HP had a recommended number for the "align=" part of the command.
For example:
DISKPART>create primary partition align=??

[John Tavares]

The best use of disk alignment for Exchange 2003 servers is: create partition primary aling=32

I'm currently setting up a new Exchange 2003 server on a Proliant DL385 and a parallel scsi attached MSA30. I've been using the diskpart command I listed above but cannot format these partitions using the Disk Management utility in Windows Server 2003. I receive an error stating the drive could not be formatted.

[LAban]

If you initialize the disk with diskpar you cannot format it directly afterwards. First you will have to assign a drive letter to the drive. Then you can format it.

DISKPAR.EXE vs. DISKPART.EXE - Last time I checked I found that DISKPAR.EXE creates Partitions of Type 0x07, "Installable File System (NTFS partition or logical drive)" whereas DISKPART.EXE (srv 2003 SP1 version) creates partitions of type 0x06 which translates to "BIGDOS FAT16 partition or logical drive (33 MBâ 4 GB)"
==> I chose to stick to the good, old utility, DISKPAR.EXE, although the newest (W2k3 SP1) version can do sector alignments too....