Support track aligned partitions inside virtual machines

Abstract

In response to a request received from a guest alignment module, host alignment module determines a target starting location in a virtual hard disk to which the beginning of a guest partition of a virtual machine is written. Host alignment module translates a guest partition's virtual hard disk address into a physical hard disk address and determines whether the physical hard disk address is track aligned with disk tracks of the physical hard disk. If the physical hard disk address is not track aligned, host alignment module determines a new track aligned physical hard disk address as the target starting location. If the physical hard disk address is track aligned, the same physical hard disk address is used as the target starting location. The target starting location is returned to the guest alignment module as a new virtual hard disk address.