Phil,

Take a look at the Paragon Alignment Tool (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/partition-alignment/).  It fixes alignment issues on both physical and virtual disks. 

Regards,

André M. Clark | Sr. Consulting Engineer, Team Lead | Insight Integrated Systems | 917.388.8236

Tell me I will forget... Show me I may remember... Involve me I WILL UNDERSTAND!!!

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible!!!

From: toasters-bounces@teaparty.net [mailto:toasters-bounces@teaparty.net] On Behalf Of Philbert Rupkins
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2013 11:54
To: toasters@teaparty.net
Subject: Fixing LUN Misalignment on Physical Machines

Hello Toasters,

I found a ton of information regarding fixing misalignment issues in virtual environments.    However, I am interested in how to resolve misalignment on a physical machine.   The only way I am aware of is to create a new LUN and perform a host based copy of the data to the new LUN.   Is this my only option or are there any other methods that require less overhead/downtime?

Here is the situation:

Server OS = Windows 2008 Server

LUN Type = Windows 2008

Partition Type = MBR (W2K3)

How did we get a W2K3 MBR partition out of a Windows 2008 server?   We didnt.  The LUN was originally created by a W2K3 machine while using an EMC storage array.   The W2K3 server was eventually retired and the LUN was presented to the W2K8 machine.     

The LUN was then migrated to a NetApp array using a block for block mirror of the data from the EMC LUN to the NetApp LUN.    Unfortunately, the NetApp LUN was created as a windows_2008 lun type because it was going to be used by a Windows 2008 server - this is where the mistake was made.    So now, we have a Windows Server 2008 box with a disk using a 2003-MBR partition type on windows_2008 lun type.

Again, I'd like to fix the misalignment issue in the easiest way possible.  Creating a new lun and performing a host based copy of the data is doable but requires a fair amount of overhead.   Just wondering if there is a more efficient way to resolve lun alignment issues with physical machines.

Thanks!

-Phil