Y580 with SSD - Question on 20GB hidden partition

After receiving my Y580 and made the recovery disks, I swapped the HDD with an 220GB Intel 520 SSD. Restore the system with the recovery disks and system run fine and fast with SSD. When I run Disk Management, I notice that I have 3 partitions:

1) 200 MB NTFS (System Active, Primary Parition)
2) 203.84 GB NTFS (Boot, Crash Dump, Primary Parition) C:
3) 19.53 (OEM partition)

On the taskbar notification area, I have Intel Rapid Storage Technology running which status reporting
- your system is functioning normally
- your system is configured to enable advanced SATA features for optimal power management and increase storage performance


My questions are:
1) Can I remove the hidden 20GB partition. Is this 20GB required by Intel RST?
2) If my system only have one single disk with OS and data all in it, does my system still have performance benefit with RST.

Thanks

 

1. 20gb is not for rst. it's to store the factory backup recovery image.
2. supposedly yes

 

Thanks.
I suppose I can remove the hidden partition to regain some space. Trade off is that I won't be able to use the One Key Recovery anymore?
Can anyone recommend system tool that can backup this partition and restore when needed?

 

windows has its own backup and restore tool in the control panel.

you make a recovery disc, then load the backup image stored on your hard drive.