On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 13:24 -0800, Joe Sloan wrote:

Jerry Houston wrote:

...

For years, defragging hard drives has been part of my routine system maintenance on Windows systems. It occurred to me that I've now had Linux systems up and running long enough that it might be a good idea to defragment their drives, to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

I haven't been able to find any information about drive defragmentation for Linux file systems. Searching for "defrag" with the software installer turned up no results. Is it called something else in Linux land?

Is defragmentation possible for Linux file systems? Is it needed occasionally, as it is on Windows systems?

A lot of windoze converts ask "where is the anti-virus software", and just as it's not really an issue, and in the same vein, defrag just isn't something linux users ever have to worry about either.

The reason is intelligent storage policies - just think of unix file systems as an office where a competent secretary keeps things filed properly while working.

We see them as being intelligent, because they make our lives so much easier, but every file system has it's pluses and minuses, the real answer, which I don't have, is how the particular file system handles constantly expanding files, and the disk allocation for same.

OTOH pc file systems are more like the office where files are tossed randomly after use, and every weekend, people are hired to come in and organize the files.

That's not true. FAT set's aside a certain amount of room for a particular file, cluster size, when a file grows past the cluster size allotted, another cluster is pointed to in the FAT table, and the file is continued there. This schema, ends up with wastes of space, and non-contiguous file parts. One defrags, in order to re-arrange the file written to the disk to be contiguously, thus avoiding the overhead due to the disks read/write head jumping all over the disk surface.

Having said that, there is a possibility of some fragmentation in unix file systems, and there have even been some tools to reorganize things, just as there have been anti-virus companies offering linux antivirus programs (!?) but in general neither are ever needed in practice.

How so in terms of the "defragger"? (I know about Linux virii.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Mike McMullin wrote:

On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 13:24 -0800, Joe Sloan wrote:

...

Jerry Houston wrote:

...

For years, defragging hard drives has been part of my routine system maintenance on Windows systems. It occurred to me that I've now had Linux systems up and running long enough that it might be a good idea to defragment their drives, to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

I haven't been able to find any information about drive defragmentation for Linux file systems. Searching for "defrag" with the software installer turned up no results. Is it called something else in Linux land?

Is defragmentation possible for Linux file systems? Is it needed occasionally, as it is on Windows systems? A lot of windoze converts ask "where is the anti-virus software", and just as it's not really an issue, and in the same vein, defrag just isn't something linux users ever have to worry about either.

The reason is intelligent storage policies - just think of unix file systems as an office where a competent secretary keeps things filed properly while working.

We see them as being intelligent, because they make our lives so much easier, but every file system has it's pluses and minuses, the real answer, which I don't have, is how the particular file system handles constantly expanding files, and the disk allocation for same.

...

OTOH pc file systems are more like the office where files are tossed randomly after use, and every weekend, people are hired to come in and organize the files.

That's not true. FAT set's aside a certain amount of room for a particular file, cluster size, when a file grows past the cluster size allotted, another cluster is pointed to in the FAT table, and the file is continued there. This schema, ends up with wastes of space, and non-contiguous file parts. One defrags, in order to re-arrange the file written to the disk to be contiguously, thus avoiding the overhead due to the disks read/write head jumping all over the disk surface.

Which is the equivalent of having the contents of each files stored on consecutive pieces of paper within folders within drawers of the office fileing cabinet, as opposed to the seek-time overhead of trying to re-assemble each file as needed from pieces of paper strewn all over the office like a tornado just came through. Joe's analogy is 100% appropriate. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 22:30 +0100, Herbert Graeber wrote:

Am Samstag, 16. Februar 2008 22:19:11 schrieb Jerry Houston:

...

For years, defragging hard drives has been part of my routine system maintenance on Windows systems. It occurred to me that I've now had Linux systems up and running long enough that it might be a good idea to defragment their drives, to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

For the most common linux file systems it is not neccessary to defragment, if they are filled up to 90 to 95%. So you care to have always some free disk space.

...

I haven't been able to find any information about drive defragmentation for Linux file systems. Searching for "defrag" with the software installer turned up no results. Is it called something else in Linux land?

No there is no tool dedicated for this. If you want to defragment inplace there ahs to be one such tool for every file system type...

If you want to do this offline, you can copy file by file from one partition to another (using runlevel 1 when neccessary).

...

Is defragmentation possible for Linux file systems? Is it needed occasionally, as it is on Windows systems?

Even on windows using NTFS defragmentation isn't neccessary if you do not fill the disk too much. Tools for defragmentation only exist, because some people fmilar with Windows 95/98 and the Fat file system ask for such tools and are willing to spend some money for this.

I'm not too sure about that. At the last place I worked, we had bad disk slowdown due to heavily fragmented files (according to our departments MSCE guru). It was normal to have several multi-meg files open at a time, and to be randomly (in terms of the order in which we opened them,) working on them. It really would be nice to know one way or the other. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:04:24 -0500, Aaron Kulkis wrote:

defragging took several hours for some NTFS partitions in the 40G - 60G range.

The interesting question would be if it brought any noticable speed-up. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Randall R Schulz wrote:

As with the extirpation of cables from the world of computing, I really, really look forward to this development! Mechanical devices (should) have NO PLACE in computing!!

Well that figures. After reading silence on the wire, I was all ready to build a wooden computer. Joe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Joe Sloan a écrit :

Well that figures. After reading silence on the wire, I was all ready to build a wooden computer.

way OT, but I know one :-) time ago, at school... the pupils where the signal processors :-)) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:59:20 -0800 Joe Sloan wrote:

Well that figures. After reading silence on the wire, I was all ready to build a wooden computer.

Done that :-) Well this is a bit OT, but we once built a wooden airline kiosk (1979) for Eastern Airlines. It was strictly a working mockup. -- -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

On Feb 18, 2008 4:57 AM, Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:53:54 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

I think we're not far away from ditching the whole abomination that is rotating magnetic storage in favor of purely solid-state mass storage.

Oh, I don't see the prices of SSDs in the range of 500 GiB and upward getting anywhere near where HDs are now.

Philipp

See http://physorg.com/news109253804.html. Talks about Terabit solid state memory sticks with 100,000 year retention times. The trouble is they think this will take 10 years to go from the lab to production. Still it is interesting to see they are still coming up with entirely new technologies to drive densities ever higher. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:37:07 -0500 "Greg Freemyer" wrote:

...

See http://physorg.com/news109253804.html.

Talks about Terabit solid state memory sticks with 100,000 year retention times. The trouble is they think this will take 10 years to go from the lab to production.

Still it is interesting to see they are still coming up with entirely new technologies to drive densities ever higher.

Back when I lived in San Antonio in the mid-1970s, there was a great deal of excitement in the industry regarding solid state memories that could replace hard drives. The primary hope at that time was bubble memory. Over the past 30 years hard drive manufacturers have been able to improve reliability, reduce size and increase storage capacity. I think that we might see solid state start to replace spinning magnetic media within the next decade or so but it has been kind of a holy grail but memory sticks essentially have replaced floppy disks and even CDs in some cases today. But so far the hard drive vendors have been able to keep the price per byte very reasonable.

Many years ago, when I was a technician supporting mini-computers, we evaluated a solid state "drive" from Ampex (IIRC). It consisted of standard semiconductor memory, with built in battery backup. Back in those days, you could even buy S-100 bus battery boards, to keep CMOS memory up when the computer was off. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas a écrit :

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:04:24 -0500, Aaron Kulkis wrote:

...

defragging took several hours for some NTFS partitions in the 40G - 60G range.

The interesting question would be if it brought any noticable speed-up.

Philipp yes, it does...

jdd -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

The question for XP admins is if that task is really worthwhile; I mean, if having a computer off-line for several hours with heavy disk activity and wear, as compared to been perhaps a small percent slower in normal use.

I suspect that the aforementioned "several hours" is only with a very slow CPU. I've never timed mine, but I'd be surprised if it ever took as much as an hour. For workstations, it's something that can be done when they're not in use. E.g., start a defragmentation at work before going home at night, or at home before going to bed for the night. Servers could be more problematic, but even there, in most cases there are periods of low demand. The questions does still remain, "Does it really make any difference"? I'd guess that the vendors who sell the utilities, and the OEMs who include them, and the computer magazines that evaluate them wouldn't waste their time if there was no need. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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The Saturday 2008-02-16 at 17:04 -0500, Aaron Kulkis wrote:

...

In my recent experience having admin duties for some XP machines while I was in Baghdad, defragging took several hours for some NTFS partitions in the 40G - 60G range.

I have always thought that this defragmenting thing could be speedied a lot. It shouldn't take much longer than reading and writing 40*2 GB. It could be done against a spare disk, for instance, in chunks of 1..20 GB, provided the machine has a good UPS. Even without it, if ram is 2 GB, it could be done in 1GB chunks. Years ago I was thinking of writing my own defragmenter for vfat... but I never started.

MS's defragger is some very poorly designed code. It works by a very "brute force" methodology, and has no intelligence to it. Norton's defragger is much better...it not only optimizes disk head movements of the defragging process, it ALSO allows you to specify certain file types to be towards the beginning of the partition (optimizing access to those files) and pushing towards the back of the blob of blocks that are in use those files which tend to, or are most likely to be modified again. The first time you defrag a disk with Norton's software, it takes an extremely long time...but once it's done, the defrags take significantly less time, and also result in a filesystem layout which is quite well optimized (provided that you do things like specifying the *.exe and *.dll be put to the front)

The question for XP admins is if that task is really worthwhile; I mean, if having a computer off-line for several hours with heavy disk activity and wear, as compared to been perhaps a small percent slower in normal use.

User's don't like waiting around for MS-es pathetically slow OS to fidget around even more due to ultra-pathetically-slow disk access. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. a écrit :

Yes, but, is the system _really_ faster after unfragmenting? The test would be to do the procedure for one third of the users, anoother third run a placebo, and nothing for the last hird; then measure the users reaction afterward.

yes it is. One I had to use a computer quite good for the time being (6 years ago, windows 2000) - I had to use it as net terminal for an on line course from office. I not even could boot and connect, I had to use an other station. After verification, I noticed there was *4* successive windows installs on a never defragmented computer. Disk was not full (at least 30% free).The computer was not yet completely free the next day... if this don't works, reinstall, they say... :-)) jdd NB: and it was a Linux course, but on windows computers, thanks to network, vmware and cygwin :-)) -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. a écrit :

Often this is because the procedure includes a forced filesystem check, not because of fragmentation itself.

no, if so there is a lessage at the beginning. here boot took approx 1/2 hour and mouse cursor barely moved :-) 1 hour only to delete some files before defrag :-)) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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The Monday 2008-02-18 at 13:05 +0100, jdd wrote:

...

Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

Yes, but, is the system _really_ faster after unfragmenting? The test would be to do the procedure for one third of the users, anoother third run a placebo, and nothing for the last hird; then measure the users reaction afterward.

yes it is.

One I had to use a computer quite good for the time being (6 years ago, windows 2000) - I had to use it as net terminal for an on line course from office.

I not even could boot and connect, I had to use an other station.

Often this is because the procedure includes a forced filesystem check,

On Wintendo 2000? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2008-02-18 at 14:27 -0500, Aaron Kulkis wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I know. I also used pctools myself time ago. But I felt that it could work faster by saving larger chunks to memory than it did.

I would agree on that point. Both seem to be hard-coded to use minimal amounts of RAM during any block transfer (even though nobody in their right mind is going to try to do work during a defrag).

No; the moment you try to do something defragging stops. I don't know how XP handles it, but in "lesser" windozes even the screensaver could halt defragging making it restart. It pissed my that the OS could not block any new task from running on such a critical moment.

...

Yes, but, is the system _really_ faster after unfragmenting? The test would be to do the procedure for one third of the users, anoother third run a placebo, and nothing for the last hird; then measure the users reaction afterward.

My experience admining XP last year indicates that users do have some level of awareness of fragmentation-related loss of responsiveness.

I didn't... not much, really. I kept mine regularly unfragmented, but mostly because looking at the defragmenting program at work was quite entertaining, as I had no TV :-p - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHuel+tTMYHG2NR9URAqLEAKCUpqYJcJ6gNVN4h6ymfhstwdCJywCfWFOo 7BuZXULzFiHK8slpbGLg/DY= =YmxB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2008-02-18 at 15:28 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I didn't... not much, really. I kept mine regularly unfragmented, but mostly because looking at the defragmenting program at work was quite entertaining, as I had no TV :-p

I suppose you also go down to the laundromat, to watch the clothes tumble. ;-)

Sure! When I was 8 years old. I preferred the old vertical type, not automatic, where you could put your hand in the water and play with it. Nowdays I would cringe if I saw a kid doing it. But the defragger is cute! :-p - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHugaKtTMYHG2NR9URApFCAJ4nh75+VV5tLMN6vOQ1tsBmhTpS/ACffk6m 8hUHo1OsgBVLl8CYoWI5A+k= =FiVy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Aaron Kulkis wrote:

James Knott wrote:

...

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I didn't... not much, really. I kept mine regularly unfragmented, but mostly because looking at the defragmenting program at work was quite entertaining, as I had no TV :-p

I suppose you also go down to the laundromat, to watch the clothes tumble. ;-)

Hey, now THERE'S an idea.

And it's cheaper than a monthly cable or satellite dish bill.

When I was young, I was fascinated by the garbage trucks and their mechanism in the back which has a sliding-down wall, and then some sort of compaction device, leaving an open space for the garbage guy to put more garbage.

Call me easily-amused.

Ok, "Easily Amused." ;) Fred -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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The Monday 2008-02-18 at 22:03 -0500, Aaron Kulkis wrote:

...

...

...

mostly because looking at the defragmenting program at work was quite > entertaining, as I had no TV :-p

I suppose you also go down to the laundromat, to watch the clothes tumble. ;-)

Hey, now THERE'S an idea.

And it's cheaper than a monthly cable or satellite dish bill.

When I was young, I was fascinated by the garbage trucks and their mechanism in the back which has a sliding-down wall, and then some sort of compaction device, leaving an open space for the garbage guy to put more garbage.

Call me easily-amused.

No, we simply are the engineering type ;-)

Then I turned 5, and took more interest in the trains and the tracks about 1/2 mile from my house [back then]. I always wanted to be an engineer. My grandma thought that was great... someone who knows how to design things and probably get a good job with one of the auto companies.... I just thought it would be great to get paid to ride trains all day ;-P -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

jdd wrote:

Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

The question for XP admins is if that task is really worthwhile; I mean, if having a computer off-line for several hours with heavy disk activity and wear, as compared to been perhaps a small percent slower in normal use.

luch worst than that. The swap file can be badly fragmented and this is very slowing the computer, and it can't be defragmented!! so one have to unset the file, restart, delete it manually , defragment and reset it...

What I have done on noew installs is specify a minimum size for the swap file (larger than it would ever grow naturally). This prevents it from becoming fragmented because it never gets appended.

(I did this one month ago... Pity I need an XP computer)

jdd

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

jdd wrote:

...

luch worst than that. The swap file can be badly fragmented and this is very slowing the computer, and it can't be defragmented!! so one have to unset the file, restart, delete it manually , defragment and reset it...

(I did this one month ago... Pity I need an XP computer)

There's a much better answer. Requires a restart, because the file system needs to be quiescent, but has never taken more than a few extra seconds, in my experience. Anyone who needs to use a Windows PC for one reason or another should know about these utilities: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/0e18b180-9b7a-4c49-8120-c47c... The pagedefrag utility in this suite of tools is what I'm referring to here. However, do take the time to explore higher level pages. These are all free tools, and many of them are outstanding examples of their types. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Mike McMullin wrote:

On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 22:30 +0100, Herbert Graeber wrote:

...

Am Samstag, 16. Februar 2008 22:19:11 schrieb Jerry Houston:

...

For years, defragging hard drives has been part of my routine system maintenance on Windows systems. It occurred to me that I've now had Linux systems up and running long enough that it might be a good idea to defragment their drives, to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

For the most common linux file systems it is not neccessary to defragment, if they are filled up to 90 to 95%. So you care to have always some free disk space.

...

I haven't been able to find any information about drive defragmentation for Linux file systems. Searching for "defrag" with the software installer turned up no results. Is it called something else in Linux land?

No there is no tool dedicated for this. If you want to defragment inplace there ahs to be one such tool for every file system type...

If you want to do this offline, you can copy file by file from one partition to another (using runlevel 1 when neccessary).

...

Is defragmentation possible for Linux file systems? Is it needed occasionally, as it is on Windows systems?

Even on windows using NTFS defragmentation isn't neccessary if you do not fill the disk too much. Tools for defragmentation only exist, because some people fmilar with Windows 95/98 and the Fat file system ask for such tools and are willing to spend some money for this.

I'm not too sure about that. At the last place I worked, we had bad disk slowdown due to heavily fragmented files (according to our departments MSCE guru). It was normal to have several multi-meg files open at a time, and to be randomly (in terms of the order in which we opened them,) working on them. It really would be nice to know one way or the other.

I have often had to defrag NTFS partitions. The defrag tool will even show you how fragmented things are. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:32:17 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

I have often had to defrag NTFS partitions. The defrag tool will even show you how fragmented things are.

That will tell you nothing! For goodness sake read the wikipedia article I quoted and you'll see why that tool isn't telling the whole truth and why defragging on a modern filesystem (and NTFS *is* one) seldom buys you much.

Philipp

You mean stuff like this? "NTFS: Windows 2000 and newer include a defragmentation tool based on Diskeeper. NT 4 and below do not have built-in defragmentation utilities. Unfortunately the integrated defragger does not consolidate free space. Thus a heavily fragmented drive with many small files may still have no large consecutive free space after defragmentation. So any new large file will instantly be split into small fragments with immediate impact on performance. This can happen even if the overall disk usage is less than 60%[9]" or "In any case, these limitations of defragmentation have led to design decisions in modern operating systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system like Windows Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista to automatically defragment in a background process but not to attempt to completely defragment a volume because doing so would only produce negligible performance gains.^[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation#_note-6" It seems to be that if Vista automagically defrags in the backround, there's still some fragmentation occuring on NTFS partitions. I used OS/2 & HPFS, for many years and also provided 3rd level OS/2 support at IBM Canada. One thing I recall was that a bit map of disk space was maintained, so that the smallest piece of free space that could hold the file, plus a bit extra would be used. This method would resist fragmenting, so long as a reasonable amount of free space was available. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2008-02-17 at 14:28 -0500, Fred A. Miller wrote: ...

...

It seems to be that if Vista automagically defrags in the backround, there's still some fragmentation occuring on NTFS partitions. I used OS/2 & HPFS, for many years and also provided 3rd level OS/2 support at IBM Canada. One thing I recall was that a bit map of disk space was maintained, so that the smallest piece of free space that could hold the file, plus a bit extra would be used. This method would resist fragmenting, so long as a reasonable amount of free space was available.

Hehehehe.....I was just ready to quote all that, and you beat me to it. :) In REAL world use, NTFS DOES fragment easily and "heavily" when used as a mail server anyway. I will admit that Vista does seem to be better than XP. But, XP will and DOES suffer from performance gradation due to NTFS being fragmented.

Because fragmentation is the fault of the operating system, not of the filesystem type. A bad implementation would fragment ext2/3 just as easily. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHuLXstTMYHG2NR9URAgoaAJ40ivSoRtPmiTwe0sw6G+X8W1WLEACfXeVL vcpAcQ2VyHLiFyUPF+llY40= =NK8y -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:08:53 -0500, James Knott wrote:

You mean stuff like this?

No, sorry, I gave the URL to the english wiki but had the german wiki in mind. If I'm in good mood, maybe I'll translate the part I was thinking about and post that.

there's still some fragmentation occuring on NTFS partitions.

Fragmentation occurs on *any* file system, it's the question of how much that's interesting and under which conditions it occurs.

One thing I recall was that a bit map of disk space was maintained, so that the smallest piece of free space that could hold the file, plus a bit extra would be used. This method would resist fragmenting, so long as a reasonable amount of free space was available.

I used OS/2 quite a while and I also do know a bit about it. NTFS is a decendant of HPFS. Remember that NT started as a next generation OS/2. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:40:01 +0100 Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

I used OS/2 quite a while and I also do know a bit about it. NTFS is a decendant of HPFS. Remember that NT started as a next generation OS/2.

Absolutely wrong. OS/2 was designed by IBM as a replacement for Windows. NT was designed by Microsoft, and was very much based on Digital's VMS from where Cutler and many developers came. NTFS may have used techniques that IBM had in HPFS.

You'd better brush up on your history. IBM hired MS to develop OS/2. MS misappropriated the money to develop Windows. OS/2 was to be the desktop system and NT the server. http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2History.html "By late 1990, Microsoft had intensified its disagreements with IBM to the point where IBM decided that it would have to take some overt action to ensure that OS/2 development continued at a reasonable pace. IBM, therefore, took over complete development responsibility for OS/2 1.x, even though it was in its dying days, and OS/2 2.00. Microsoft would continue development on Windows and OS/2 3.00. Shortly after this split, Microsoft renamed OS/2 V3 to Windows NT." -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Jerry Feldman wrote:

While some features of OS/2 were incorporated into NT, such as LAN manager, NT was not a descendent of OS/2.

Until NT4 (I think it was), NT was able to run OS2 PM1.1 applications as NT shipped with the OS2 libraries. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Jerry Feldman wrote:

Yes, there were a number of OS/2 features that we used by NT. I have no issue with that, but the OS itself was designed from the ground up and was not a descendant of OS/2. When Microsoft and IBM split up Windows was really putting its resources into Windows, not OS/2. I'm not sure if HPFS became NTFS.

I'm pretty certain it didn't - I've never heard that they should be related at all. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott wrote:

I've not seen anything that compares with the WPS desktop.

Hear, hear. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:39:34 -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:

I'm not sure if HPFS became NTFS.

Not directly, no. What I meant was that much of the design of HPFS was used when creating NTFS. But I'd like to know who did have the brilliant idea to allow meta data (i.e. the MFT) to get fragmented ... Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:28:13 -0500, James Knott wrote:

It's another area where Windows is behind the times.

Not really. NTFS is rather fragmentation resistent. It's only FAT and its decendants that lacks considerably. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Joe Sloan wrote:

...

Not really. NTFS is rather fragmentation resistent. It's only FAT and its decendants that lacks considerably.

That's what some have said - and yet I see all my ntfs-using friends doing their weekly defrag. What is one to believe?

At work, I have two XP-Pro workstations at my desk, and support more of them in other parts of the office. I'm of the belief that an NTFS partition doesn't need to be defragged *often*, however I do so once a month, along with other routine tasks like security updates, in the name of preventative maintenance. Each month, each machine shows significant evidence of fragmentation (red bars in the graphical display), and after defragmentation everything is blue (contiguous) or green (can't be processed). I can't swear that the fragmentation actually has any measurable effect on performance, or if so, how much, because I don't wait for it to become a problem. I just know that significant fragmentation *occurs* within that time. By the way, this thread caused me to research installable file systems, and I came across an IFS driver that allows Windows machines to read and write EXT2 and EXT3 partitions. It interests me, because one of my Linux machines dual boots with XP-Pro, and I thought it might also be of interest to others here: http://www.fs-driver.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:28:13 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

It's another area where Windows is behind the times.

Not really. NTFS is rather fragmentation resistent. It's only FAT and its decendants that lacks considerably.

Philipp

Then why does the defragmenter in XP show how fragmented NTFS partions are? -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

On Sunday 17 February 2008 11:29:45 am James Knott wrote:

...

Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:28:13 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

It's another area where Windows is behind the times.

Not really. NTFS is rather fragmentation resistent. It's only FAT and its decendants that lacks considerably.

Philipp

Then why does the defragmenter in XP show how fragmented NTFS partions are?

Fragmentation resistant doesn't mean fragmentation free.

I never said it does. Fragmentation resistant file systems will fragment, as they approach capacity. But even an NTFS partition that's only using a fraction of it's capacity may still require defragging. Fire up the defragger on any NTFS partition that hasn't been defragged for a while and tell me what you see. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:29:45 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Then why does the defragmenter in XP show how fragmented NTFS partions are?

Because fragmentation resistant doesn't mean fragmentation free! Please do read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation and then we'll discuss further. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:29:45 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Then why does the defragmenter in XP show how fragmented NTFS partions are?

Because fragmentation resistant doesn't mean fragmentation free! Please do read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation and then we'll discuss further.

Philipp

You might also want to read stuff like this article, straight from Microsoft, including this little gem: "A file with all its parts stored in one location on a disk is described as "contiguous." If a file is not contiguous, it's fragmented; broken into pieces that are scattered throughout the disk. All Windows NT® and Windows 2000 file types—File Allocation Table (FAT) and NTFS file system (NTFS)—are susceptible to fragmentation." http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742585.aspx Tell me again that NTFS is frag resistant. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott wrote:

Jerry Houston wrote:

...

For years, defragging hard drives has been part of my routine system maintenance on Windows systems. It occurred to me that I've now had Linux systems up and running long enough that it might be a good idea to defragment their drives, to make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

I haven't been able to find any information about drive defragmentation for Linux file systems. Searching for "defrag" with the software installer turned up no results. Is it called something else in Linux land?

Is defragmentation possible for Linux file systems? Is it needed occasionally, as it is on Windows systems?

Most of the file systems Linux uses are fragmentation resistant, so defragging isn't necessary. It's another area where Windows is behind the times. Fragmentation resistant file systems have been around for many years.

Microsoft: leading computing into the 1960's...TODAY! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org