Resize & create new recovery partition that is 4096 byte sector aligned

[jgstew]

Almost all hard drives have had 512 byte sectors, but new Advanced Format hard drives (many over 2TB) and all SSDs have 4096 byte sectors. It is important that new partitions are created on 4096 byte sector boundaries to maximize performance and minimize wear and tear. Any partition that is 4096 byte aligned will also be 512 byte aligned because 4096 is evenly divisible by 512. (4096 mod 512 = 0)

This issue is relevant to the "createNewAppleBootPartition" subroutine, but a subroutine could be created to check partition alignment in both cases. It could be used to guide the creation of a new recovery partition that is 4096 byte aligned, but it could also be used to warn if an existing recovery partition is not 4096 byte aligned.

A partition is 4096 byte aligned if the partition starting offset is evenly divisible by 4096. (PartitionStartingOffset mod 4096 = 0) The partition starting offset is the number of bytes between the beginning of the drive and the beginning of the partition in question.

SSD Partition alignment references:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format
• http://www.paragon-software.com/home/partition-alignment/
• http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-your-partitions-are-correctly-aligned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance