Is It Safe To Defrag A Solid State Hybrid Drive?

Solid State Hybrid Drive's are made of both flash storage and the typical old mechanical parts. I've tried to look around the net and from what I read defragmenting solid state drives is not a good thing to do. However the old rpm drives are okay with doing so. But since this drive contains the best of both worlds is it alright to do so or will I damage the drive? Someone online said you should only do a Solid State Hybrid Drive once in a blue moon because it does have both capabilities in one & you'll bring it's end of life sooner. I mean the reality is you don't even notice or really know from what I can tell, as to where the data goes to when it's written. Either the solid state side or mechanical rpm side... So how would you even be able to select where exactly to defrag without causing damage?

In which case what software would you use to defrag this type of drive if it's even safe to do so and when?

Thank You

 

I have never defragged mine. Like yours, it's only a storage drive so there's very little to be gained from defragging but an occasional defrag isn't going to hurt anyway.

EDIT - just checked it, it's 0% defragmented even though optimisation has never been run

 

SSDs shouldn’t be defragged but Trimmed. Windows itself will do this.
I would think this would be the same for hybrid drives too.

 

THIS is the drive in question. It's a 500Gb drive but has only 8Gb of NAND memory, the rest being a standard spinner. By the look of mine it seems Win 10 is defragging the drive in the background and the SSD bit is being optimised (trimmed) to the schedule, default weekly. Certainly looks as if Windows is doing what is necessary and user intervention is unnecessary.

 

I hear what you're saying but is that an internal drive? My Solid State Hybrid Drive is in a usb enclosure. I'm wondering would Windows behave the same way with an external?

I think I agree defragmenting probably doesn't benefit if it's just a storage drive. However it is interesting to know all of this. Special thanks to everyone who has replied thus far.

 

Mine is in a USB enclosure too. As it's 0% fragmented it looks like Windows is doing what needs doing even though it isn't actually attached most of the time. This is Win 10 though, can't comment on 8.1.