NetApp support has suggested us aligning partitions to improve performance, in short: starting sector must be divisible by 8. How can I move the start point in a misaligned partition -in production, with ext3- under Linux?

A screenshot with a misaligned (start=63s) and aligned (start=64s) partition is available at:

http://filesocial.com/lkwvvn2

(If anyone is interested in this topic, NetApp has a good document explaining performance issues in misaligned partitions, search for "tr-3747": Best Practices for File System Alignment in Virtual Environments.)

I have tried using parted "resize + move" commands, but when moving start point a get this error:

(parted) resize
Partition number? 1
Start?  [64s]?
End?  [419425019s]? 419425018
(parted) move
Partition number? 1
Start? 65
End?  [419425019s]? 419425019
Error: Can't move a partition onto itself.  Try using resize, perhaps?

Using fdisk 'b' command in expert mode ('move beginning of data in a partition') works, but it doesn't move the file system.. thanks!!