[CentOS] 4kB sector size HDDs

> how do I go about setting up
>the alignment of the partitions I use?


If you use one large partition it's easy: you just create the partition
leaving 1 meg of free space before the partition. This causes the partition
to start at sector 2048, which is a number that 4096 is divisible by. Newer
versions of disk utilities like gparted suggest this for you by placing a 1
in the 'Free Space Preceding' box when you go to create a new partition.

If you create multiple partitions, it's a little harder since you have make
sure that subsequent partitions start on sectors that can be divided evenly
into 4096. I've never done this as I always set up one large partition on my
storage arrays, and I use a separate drive for the OS to boot from and
another separate drive for my VMs. I do this for performance reasons.

All of this is explained more or less if you google.