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I just bought a new SSD (OCZ Vertex 2) and plan to do a clean install of Maverick on it (/home is on a separate HDD). I read that it is wise to align SSD partitions.

What advantages does it truly bring to have an aligned partition on a SSD?

And how do I create an aligned Ext4 partition for the new SSD during the installation of Ubuntu 10.10?

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What advantages does it truly bring to have an aligned partition on a SSD?

Basically it's all about better performance. If it's really such a big deal with current generation SSDs - who knows, but aligning the partition won't hurt.

Anyways, Ubuntu's installer automatically aligns the partitions correctly. The first partition starts at sector 2048, that is after 2048 sectors รก 512 Bytes = 1 MiB, and 1 MiB is evenly dividable by all common SSD block sizes.

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Thanks. But just to clarify, are partitions aligned correctly even if I create them form the "Specify partitions manually" menu at install? – Uli Dec 27 '10 at 0:44
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@Uli: Yes, they are (I just checked to make sure). – htorque Dec 27 '10 at 10:00
Thank you very much for your help! – Uli Dec 27 '10 at 10:20
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htorque's answer implies that it "isn't a big deal" while at http://serverfault.com/questions/110127/which-filesystem-is-best-for-centos-5-on-ssd (one of the StackExchange "branches") it's being portrayed as quite the opposite. This makes both answers contradictory and pretty much useless. Actually all of the entries on the subject.

Theodore Ts'o's (kernel maintainer of ext4 fs) words are being used to both recommend and discourage alignment as obsolete: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/8397/ http://elliotli.blogspot.com/2010/12/easy-way-to-align-linux-partitions-for.html Here's an article on his very own website http://tytso.livejournal.com/2009/02/20/

Could someone please clear that up?

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Nowhere did I say that it's no big deal. I have no idea how much of a problem this is with current generation SSDs, however partition alignment will not hurt in any case. – htorque Oct 20 '11 at 17:24
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