Misaligned disk partition offsets and SQL Server Performance
I’m starting off this series of posts with a discussion about partition offsets. Diving off at the deep end a bit perhaps, but if your disk setup is not based on firm foundations, you’re setting yourself up for one of the most common and easily-avoidable performance issues right from the off, and a IO performance hit of 20-30%.
The partition offset issue is relevant to any disk partitions created prior to Windows Server 2008.