Can you Defragment and Optimize a Hard Drive (or Volume) which is a member of an Intel RST RAID 1 Volume or should you just leave the Volume alone?

[MMata3]

Can you (or should you) Defragment and Optimize a Hard Drive (or Volume) which is a member of an Intel Rapid Storage Technology RAID 1 Volume?

My Configuration:

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Version: 14.5.0.1081

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Volume1: 2 x 2 TB Seagate Desktop HDDs (contains Operating System & other Software)

Volume2: 2 x 2 TB Seagate Desktop HDDs (contains Data only)

Can I Defragment and Optimize either or both of the above Volumes using Defragment and Optimize Drives in Windows 10 Administrative Tools or should I just leave the Volumes alone? Both Volumes are OK right now (see Screenshot of Current Status) but I would like to set a schedule for Optimization if there is no downside to it. Thank you for any information which can shed light on this subject.

[idata]

Hello MarkM-NY

Thank you for joining the Intel® community. For the information that you are sharing with us, I see that you are looking to use the Windows® defragment tool on the RAID arrays on your system; since this is a 3rd party tool we cannot confirm how it may improve or impact your system. I would recommend contacting Microsoft for more inside on the possible outcomes. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus/ Note: we recommend having a back up of your data before making changes on the system to avoid data damage. Regards,Leonardo C.Intel Customer Support TechnicianUnder Contract to Intel Corporation

[MMata3]

Thank you for your response. If any member of the Intel Community has used the Windows 10 Administrative Tool Defragment and Optimize Drives to Defragment an Intel RST RAID 1 Volume consisting of 2 Hard Disk Drives, I would appreciate learning how it worked out or any further information on the issue. The only information I have been able to find applies to Intel RST RAID 1 Volumes consisting of Solid State Drives. For Solid State Drives, the Intel recommendations appear in the Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox User Guide Rev. October 2016 page 20.