Check the alignment status of a virtual machine to determine whether it is aligned or misaligned. You should fix the alignment of a misaligned virtual machine to optimize I/O performance.
For this state... | Do this... |
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Actually aligned | Nothing. The partitions of the virtual machine's hard disk are aligned to the storage system and start at the correct offset. |
Functionally aligned | Nothing. The partitions of the virtual machine's hard disk are misaligned; however, when residing on an optimized datastore, they align on correct boundaries. As a result, the virtual machine performs as though it is aligned. If you want to clone a functionally aligned virtual machine, you should take it offline and fix the VMDK alignment before you clone it. Otherwise, the clones can be misaligned if the destination datastores are not optimized for the VMDK layout of the clones. |
Misaligned, Offline alignment only | Power down the virtual machine and align the VMDK using a tool such as VMware vCenter Converter. The virtual machine is misaligned; however, VSC cannot align it due to either of the following:
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Misaligned, Online migration capable | Use VSC to perform an online alignment. |
Other | Review the following reasons why VSC cannot determine the alignment state of the virtual machine:
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