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

[titaniumx3]

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.

 

[titaniumx3]

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.

 

[titaniumx3]

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.