Disk defragmenter in Linux

Tim ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Fri Dec 23 19:53:04 UTC 2005


Tim:
>> But such (static) data doesn't get fragmented, it stays as it was
>> original written.  It's changing files that become fragmented, and
>> newly created ones


Mike McCarty:
> Er? Perhaps what Tony wrote was in error, but his understanding is
> the same as mine. The ext3 tends to fragment files as it writes them.

It would only be fragmenting the files that it writes to, not the ones
already on the disk.  Sure, a fragmented word processor document might
take a bit longer to open (though it'd have to be a large file for you
to notice), but the word processor is going to take just as long to
start up as it ever did.  Likewise with all the other unmodified files
on the drive (most of the OS and applications).  Writing a fragmented
file doesn't shuffle everything else around.

Things like large mail spool files have been about the only thing that
strike me as a fragmentation issue.  Most other files are rather small.

> And what you wrote doesn't address the directories, which get appended
> to, and presumably fragmented, at the time they are creat

I was under the impression that the directory structure was recorded in
manner that's different from how the files are stored.

-- 
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.




More information about the fedora-list mailing list