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I have a new vertex 3 drive. I did a fresh install Win7 Ultimate x64, installed all the drivers, optimized the services for the SSD, and still it has 400mb/s read, 80mb/s write (using CrystalDisk Mark). I heard that the drive should be aligned somehow? Can I align it without reinstalling?

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did you update your SSD firmware to 2.15? Not sure if that's what you meant by drivers. – John Barry Dec 1 '11 at 13:16
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If you started from a blank drive and let Windows 7 create the partitions as it was being set up then chances are your drive is already properly aligned.

Basically you want to see that the partitions start at approximately 1MB into the disk.

From the TechPowerUp SSD Alignment Calculator you can find out using MSinfo

Start -> Run -> msinfo32.  
In MSInfo: Components -> Storage -> Disks -> Partition Starting Offset

In that field you'd want to see something like 1048576 which is 1MB.

This question seems to state that another way to see if your drive is properly aligned is to use GParted (a linux LiveCD) to tell whether the drive is aligned.

As to how to align the disk it seems that lifehacker has a guide on how to do it using GParted

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"Partition Starting Offset 105 906 176 bytes" – blez Dec 1 '11 at 12:39
That sounds about right for a partition that is exactly 101MB (105,906,176 / 1024 / 1024 = 101) into the disk, I would hope that you have a 100MB "boot" partiton on the disk as well as that one so the space is not wasted, but to me your current partition is correctly aligned. – Mokubai Dec 1 '11 at 12:43
It has 100mb boot partition. So everything looks ok? – blez Dec 2 '11 at 0:31
Yes, your partitions look to be properly aligned but your write speed does look a bit on the low side according to the website specifications. I do not know what is causing that but I am certain it is not the drive alignment. Have you tried a different benchmark program? – Mokubai Dec 2 '11 at 7:26
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