Disk defragmenter in Linux

Robert Nichols rnicholsNOSPAM at comcast.net
Sat Dec 31 01:35:16 UTC 2005


Mike McCarty wrote:
> Robert Nichols wrote:
> 
>> Mike McCarty wrote:
>>
>>> Surely those who argue that ext3 does not get fragmented
>>> during install don't think that 248 extents is "not
>>> significant fragmentation".
>>
>>
>>
>> While that almost certainly constitutes "significant fragmentation"
>> it probably has very little effect on performance.  It _would_
>> affect performance if that file were being read sequentially, but
>> ELF binaries don't get loaded that way.  Individual pages are
>> read in via demand paging, and the next page needed could be from
>> anywhere in the file.
>>
> 
> I thought we were discussing ext3 and what could happen with it.
> Someone was claiming that ext3 was inherently immune or
> nearly so to fragmentation.
> 
> So, back to the OP's question: Where is there/why isn't there
> a defragmenter for ext3?

With a file system that typically minimizes fragmentation and an
OS that isn't very sensitive to such fragmentation as is likely
to occur, there is just insufficient perceived need to justify
the effort for writing one.

-- 
Bob Nichols         Yes, "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.




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