Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2702 mails)

[Ted.Harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ((Ted Harding))]

On 13-Jun-99 Alexander Daniloff wrote:
> Does ext2 Linux file system require periodical defragmentation like FAT
> or NTFS?
> I couldn't find any information about what prevents ext2 file system
> from fragmentation under heavy usage and why ext2 doesn't require
> periodical defragmentation. Are there any special defragmenting
> applications for Linux?
> Could somebody point me on the information source about nessessarity or
> unnesseserity to periodically make defragmentation of ext2 Linux
> partitions?

I've had ext2 filesystems running for years under heavy use with very
little fragmentation, and I have never tried to "defrag" them (and I
wouldn't know how to, short of copying out and copying back).

The oldest (Red Hat 4.1 from Feb 1996) has the following "df" information:

/dev/hda1             450282  423550     3474     99%   /
/dev/hdb2             297635  224924    57339     80%   /depot
/dev/hdc2             634724  471094   130845     78%   /mnt2
/dev/hdc1             396500  291788    84226     78%   /opt

therefore pretty well filled all round, and in constant heavy use; but I
don't think I've ever seen more than about 5 per cent "non-contiguous".
My advice: don't worry about it!

Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 13-Jun-99                                       Time: 20:01:06
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