Windows 7 System Image - Does it preserve alignment on SSD?

titaniumx3 · 16 May 2011 at 10:43

I have an SSD and need to make complete disc images, but before I do so I thought I should give Windows 7's built in image utility a go. My only worry is that does it restore the discs exactly as they were and would the the alignment on my SSD stay the same?

My SSD currently has a 100mb system reserved partition and a main partition with an alignment of 103424K (which as far as I know is optimal for an SSD).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

vectisitch · 16 May 2011 at 10:48

probably not,but you could do the image install then use paragon alignment tool and all will be cushty rodney

titaniumx3 · 16 May 2011 at 10:57

Can someone confirm this, because there seems to be conflicted reports. On one of the official microsoft support sites, it says that the system image restore preserves the partition layout and alignment, but then I've read people saying otherwise.

Dirk · 16 May 2011 at 11:45

It does keep alignment.

titaniumx3 · 16 May 2011 at 12:54

So would there be any real benefit in getting something like Acronis True Image?

I will need to back up my SSD (100mb reserve partition + 74gb main partition) and also a 500gb partition from a separate hard disk, where I have some other applications installed. I have one another partition on this hard disk, plus two other separate hard drives, but they only store data and no installed programs.

lurkio · 16 May 2011 at 13:23

As long as the 100MB system partition does NOT get deleted and re-created
the alignment will stay the same (1st partition on HD will set the alignment)

robcat101 · 16 May 2011 at 16:46

I've used W7 restore image a couple of times and the alignment has remained each time so don't worry.

(As lurkio says you need to save the 100mb partition to the image as well, but it will tend to do this automatically).

Dirk · 18 May 2011 at 08:42

Bear in mind when using this to effectively clone one drive to another, if the target drive is larger than the image you will need to use 'Disk Management' to extend the partition once the restore is complete.