Defraging a Raid volume.

Soldato
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Howzit guys,

So I want to defrag a machine at work, however it rims two hdds in a raid format. Would doing a defrag on the drive case any issues and more importantly is it even worth it?

Thanks all!
 
In RAID 0 since data is already split up due to striping, it could be more problematic than helpful. What I'm saying is when the HDD is defragged, it's essentially moving data. Now, if the data is split up, when the HDD tries to move it will it be moved to only one disk? Will it remain in a striped configuration? That's what really gets me.
 
The RAID controller handles the striping, and it works at a lower level than the OS, which just "sees" a single volume... so no, there's no danger of a defragger assembling all the bits of a file on one physical disk. If a file is smaller than the stripe size then it will all be on one disk, but it's the RAID controller doing this, not the OS or its utilities.

As to whether it's worth it, maybe in some circumstances, just as with a single disk. It won't do any harm, anyway.

edit: I see the OP didn't actually specify that it was RAID 0, but the same thing applies for any RAID configuration. :)
 
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In RAID 0 since data is already split up due to striping, it could be more problematic than helpful. What I'm saying is when the HDD is defragged, it's essentially moving data. Now, if the data is split up, when the HDD tries to move it will it be moved to only one disk? Will it remain in a striped configuration? That's what really gets me.

this is wrong,

it will not un-stripe the information

do the defrag
 
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