How to Align SSD After Clone - Complete Guide 🔥

• How to Align SSD After Clone
• Why SSD Gets Slow After Clone

How to align SSD after cloning? Is SSD running slow on Windows 11/10/8/7 after cloning? Don't worry; you can solve this problem with a 4K alignment SSD. EaseUS will guide you step by step.

How to Align SSD After Clone?

SSD uses the smallest 4K sectors to save data. If the 4K allocation units in the SSD are not aligned, reads and writes will span multiple sectors, resulting in poor SSD performance or slow system operation. 

To solve this problem, EaseUS Partition Master Professional provides a 4K Alignment feature. It can align an SSD after cloning to improve its performance to the best. Download this tool and follow the guide to align SSD after cloning.

Apply to:

• SSD boots slowly after cloning or restoring.
• Frequently manage the partitions on the SSD (such as resizing or moving partitions).
• Copy disk to SSD.
• Migrate OS, disks, and partitions from older versions of Windows XP, Windows 7, etc.

Step 1. Go to "Toolkit" and choose "4K Alignment".

Step 2. Select the disk you want to align. Click the "Start" button.

This is the simplest and fastest way to align an SSD. If your SSD performance is poor or the system is running slowly after cloning, EaseUS Partition Master can quickly help you with the SSD 4K alignment and remove this error.

Why SSD Gets Slow After Clone

After upgrading/cloning the hard drive from HDD to SSD or migrating the operating system to SSD in Windows 7/8/10/11, you may encounter problems, such as poor SSD performance or the system running slowly on SSD. So why?

The main reason for slow SSD startup after cloning is incorrect partition alignment. SSD begins the first partition after 64 empty blocks, while HDD starts the first partition after 63 empty blocks. Therefore, it takes time for the computer to find the correct files to load into the SSD, block by block.

However, how do you determine whether the partitions are properly aligned? Here is a detailed guide for you:

Press the "Win" key + "R," enter "msinfo32" in the Run interface, and enter "Components > Storage > Disk" to find the SSD. Then, divide the number in "Partition Starting Offset" by 4096; if you get a decimal, your SSD partition is misaligned. This is why the SSD starts slowly after cloning or migrating.

Share this article and let more users know how to check if an SSD is properly aligned and align an SSD after a clone.

Conclusion

For hard drives of limited size, the default size is 512 bytes. With the development of the times, the capacity of hard drives continues to expand. Currently, 512 bytes per sector has been changed to 4096. It's called a 4K sector. Due to the differences between traditional disks and new disks, your partitions may not be aligned correctly when you clone an HDD to an SSD. This is also an important problem to be solved in the current article - align SSD after clone.

4K Alignment SSD After Clone FAQ

I believe you already know how to align SSD after cloning. Here are some further questions about SSD alignment. Check them if you need them.

1. Why do we need to align SSD after cloning?

A typical mechanical hard drive boots up its first partition after 63 empty blocks, while a solid-state drive boots up after 64 empty blocks. If the partitions in the SSD are misaligned, the physical sectors and clusters will shift, and you will find that your disk read and write speed/Windows running speed/startup speed slows down.

With partitions properly aligned, your computer's performance will be better than before. Therefore, users must align the SSD partition after cloning the HDD to the SSD.

2. What does 4K align SSD mean?

4K alignment allows the SSD to use the smallest 4K sectors in the file system to save data. Especially after cloning HDD to SSD, it is very necessary to 4K align the SSD. This will allow the SSD to read and write data at the fastest speed and increase the computer's speed.

3. What to do after SSD is cloned?

After you clone an HDD to an SSD or clone OS to an SSD, you need to:

• Check whether all data on the SSD has been cloned correctly.
• Ensure the system boots from the cloned SSD in BIOS/UEFI; otherwise, you will not be able to boot the computer from the SSD.
• Change Windows startup settings to ensure you are running Windows from an SSD.
• Also, check that the partitions in your SSD are properly aligned; otherwise, your SSD will run slower.