There is an EMC whitepaper titled Using diskpar and diskpart to align partitions on Windows Basic and Dynamic Disks. This paper describes how legacy Windows issues cause a single disk I/O to span multiple tracks. This puts an unnecessary load on the SAN and reduces performance. The fix is to align the partition. Below is a sample session using the DISKPART utility. Comments are in red.

Invoke Diskpart

C:\>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 5.2.3790.3959

Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Microsoft Corporation.

On computer: MYTESTBOX

You must select the disk to act on

DISKPART> select disk 5

Disk 5 is now the selected disk.

Create a partition using the EMC-recommended alignment offset

DISKPART> create partition primary align=64

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

Select the partition / volume that you just created

DISKPART> select volume=0

Volume 0 is the selected volume.

Assign a drive letter

DISKPART> assign letter=o

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

Exit Diskpart

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart…

C:\>

You can now use the disk management MMC to format the partition