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I have an SSD in system and a RAID 0 array with SSD caching turned on(Intel SRT or Intel Smart Response Tech.).
Should i defrag it?

Also have a problems with windows defragmentator. It detects my raid array as SSD and was not able to defrag it. So should i use 3-rd party tools like UltraDefrag?

Ruslan F.
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2 Answers2

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What is the sense in defragging an SSD? Using up write cycles - that is actually a good reason. Having too much money to burn and this wanting to prematurely age your SSD drives.

The gain of defrag is less head movment on a hard disc. SSD do not have this issue to start with - a defrag makes very little sense for them. This is why the windows defragmenter does not defrag it. It is not "an issue with it", it is common sense stopping the user from doing something that is only damaging without benefit.

TomTom
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  • If I understand the question correctly it's about an HDD RAID array with an SSD cache. – Håkan Lindqvist May 31 '15 at 10:47
  • SSD cached HDD is not SSD. So I guess reading from the underlying HDD would still benefit from defragmenting, since the SSD cache will not hold all data on the magnetic drive. Due to SSD cache, the benefit should be small though, unless the drive is really badly fragmented. – Andreas Reiff Jul 23 '16 at 08:32
  • @AndreasReiff The problem with this is reality. As the caching is transparent a defrag will put a SERIOUS load on the SSD. If that is a write cache every write will hit the SSD - and is useless here. Unless you have some BIG gains to get from this, it is a useless waste of ressources as a good enough SSD cache will mitigate the fragmentation anyway. – TomTom Jul 23 '16 at 09:19
  • @TomTom Yes, you are correct. In my case, since I googled this before doing it myself, I first deactivated the cache (it is Intel RST), then defragged, then enabled it again. I have no idea of the benefit, the defag utility showed quite a bit of fragmentation though. OS upgrade time, so I figured I might as well do it. I will not repeat it soon though. – Andreas Reiff Jul 24 '16 at 18:01
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No, do not defrag an SSD or SSD cache. If you want to defrag your harddrives, it might not be possible using a RAID array as Windows doesn't know what's where on the actual drives. It can only see the logical drive, which means that unless the FakeRAID driver from Intel is smart enough to understand defragmentation at all, you will get zero benefits from trying to defrag your array, even if you temporarily disable the SSD cache.

John Keates
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