On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 08:30, Ti Kan wrote:
Jerry Feldman writes:
But, I have one question regarding the need for defragging before moving or resizing. For a long time, I remember that Partition Magic used to advise defragmenting a partition prior to moving or resizing, but in the newer versions this was no longer a requirement. The reason I am asking this is because during installfests, having a Windows user perform a defrag may be very time consuming. So, the real question is "does a Windows partition require a defrag before using a partitioner, such as: 1. Partition Magic (8+) 2. DiskWorks (Partition Commander) 3. Parted/QTParted
A full defrag of a windows filesystem (both FAT and NTFS) not only defragments files, but moves all files toward the beginning of the disk, so that the end of the disk is all free space (assuming that the disk is not full). This then allows reduction of the filesystem size without loss of data. If you're growing the filesystem then a defrag is probably not necessary.
A completely defrag'ed filesystem is easier to repair/recover if a catastrophic error occur.
Of course, Linux filesystems rarely require the use of a degragmenter.
If blocks are allocated and used near the end of a Linux filesystem's partition, then I don't think you could reduce its size without the equivalent of a defragment operation. The aim here is not so much to make files contiguous, but to make as much contiguous free space as possible at the end of the partition. Is there such a thing as a defragmenter for any of Linux's filesystems?
-Ti
It's also important which defragger you use. Norton system works defrag will leave files at the end of the partition, where as MS defrag will move them to the front. Mike