Defragment RAID 6 Volume ESXi Passthrough

[yuljk]

Hi guys - I'm running ESXi 6.5 with a Windows 2012 R2 guest which has an LSI 9260-8i setup in passthrough to the VM (RAID 6 array)

Windows optimize is showing my RAID 6 volume as 21% fragmented - Am I safe to defrag, either using the built-in defragmentation tool or diskeeper Pro? - I understand it's generally bad practice to defrag VM disks, however in this case it's a RAID array passthrough to the guest.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[drescherjm]

The either should be safe. They use the same OS API.

 

[yuljk]

So it's generally safe to defrag a RAID volume that has been passed through to a Windows guest?

 

[drescherjm]

Should not be a problem.

 

[Master_shake_]

how big is your raid 6 and how long will it take to defrag?

 

[yuljk]

12TB array - this isn't a production environment. Just a home lab.