Defrag Raid 5 Drives

[Matt Mascarich]

I have heard that it is dangereous to defrag RAID 5 volumes. Is this true? Should I be defragging? I use numerous smart array controllers with win2k ntfs data volumes.

[Tom Mucha_1 · Accepted solution]

It would not hurt to defrag it. The defragger included in windows 2000 is a good place to start, but it isn't the best.
There is a program called from executive software called Diskeeper, that I use personally. It lets you schedule defrag's so you can do it at off-peak times. http://www.executivesoftware.com

[Rob Mottram]

Defragging does not harm RAID5 volumes on an NTFS files system. I too recommend using Diskeeper it works well with Raid 5 and using the scheduler works well to, however I have found that "SMART Scheduling" does not work as well as it should.

[Stuart Robinson]

We have recently purchased a Winternals product called Defrag Manager. Like Diskeeper Lite, you can schedule defrags, but you install the software on a central server an it controls the scheduling. You have to purchase licenses for the nodes you want to run it on.