Basically, to align disks and partitions in virtual machines, you need to set an offset so that clusters in the guest OS file system match the volume block size on your NFS storage. Usually, the block size of most network storages is 512 bytes or a multiple of 512 bytes. As an example, the following sections describe the procedure of aligning disks and partitions for Linux and Windows virtual machines assuming that the size of your NFS blocks is 512 bytes.
When deciding on aligning disks and partitions, take into account that this process destroys all data on these disks and partitions. So if you want to have a correctly aligned system partition, you need to align your disks and partitions before creating a virtual machine and installing a guest operating system in it. If you do not want an aligned system partition, you can first create a virtual machine and install a guest OS in it, and then align your data disks from inside the virtual machine.
The sections below demonstrate how to align disks and partitions before you start installing a guest OS. You can, however, use a similar procedure to align data disks and partitions from inside your virtual machines.
