Fajar Priyanto wrote:
Hi all,
A today's mail from one of the new comer brings me this question again in my
mind. Linux disk defragmenter. Does it really not needed?
Very good question. Opinions vary. Personally, I think that part of the
reason some people believe that disc defragging is not necessary with
Linux is the myth that Linux is just better than the other OS in every
way.
I've been googling around and find that this matter has been discussed as
early as 1998. And it seems that the only distro that provides a defragmenter
program is debian.
"Hotly debated" might be a better phrase than the word "discussed".
There are several way of fixing a heavy defragmented disk in Linux, but the
I guess you meant "heavily fragmented".
[snip]
to another partition. Then delete them from /home. After that, I copied some
of the files and mail back to /home in order to keep 20% of /home free. So
far the performance is ok.
Just freeing up disc is a way to speed up ext3, so I am told.
However, still the question remains. If Linux ext3 doesn't need defragmenter,
and able to defrag itself, what is the process name? And when does it run?
Umm, I believe the argument is not that it defrags itself, just that
the type of fragmentation it enjoys does not affect performance. Some
sort of fertilizer[*], if you ask me.
Can I see it in action? Is there an utility to see on what percentage my
current defragmentation? I tried fschk but no luck.
Nah.
[TONGUE IN CHEEK MODE ON]
The ext3 file system is so much superior to other file systems,
that it runs as slowly as a fully fragmented disc ALL the time,
even when everything is fully contiguous. It's equally slow.
[TONGUE IN CHEEK MODE OFF]
[*] Bull shit and horse shit come to mind.
Mike
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