File system fragmentation

[James Kosin]

Mark Haney wrote:

>Yeah, it's a start.  I pretty much figured it was going to be the same
>story as any other file system.  I push my systems hard.  And I have
>lots of small files which doesn't really help.
>
>Now, can anyone tell me if a defragmenter would help for ext3?  Or not? 
>It helps a ton with NTFS, but would the same thing happen to a linux fs?
>  
>
Mark,

I've heard of some file defragmenters; but, I wouldn't recommend them 
that I'm aware of.  Linux has more of a problem with it being a dynamic 
OS to the point that files can change (logfiles, etc) all the time.  If 
you try defragmenting that type of file-system, problems can arise quickly.

The easiest thing would be to log into single user mode (or into a mode 
with very little file systems mounted...  the floppy boot would actually 
be good here)  and mount then copy files from the old partition 
somewhere else, then clean the old file system and copy the files back.

Google came up with these of interest:
http://www.washington.edu/R870/examples/fragmentation
http://www.joseph-a-nagy-jr.us/cola-faq/colafaq-3.html

The second one is more about why there is no defragmenter for Linux.

Good Luck,
James Kosin
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PS: My PGP signing tool is in for repairs.