Tim: >> But such (static) data doesn't get fragmented, it stays as it was >> original written. It's changing files that become fragmented, and >> newly created ones Mike McCarty: > Er? Perhaps what Tony wrote was in error, but his understanding is > the same as mine. The ext3 tends to fragment files as it writes them. It would only be fragmenting the files that it writes to, not the ones already on the disk. Sure, a fragmented word processor document might take a bit longer to open (though it'd have to be a large file for you to notice), but the word processor is going to take just as long to start up as it ever did. Likewise with all the other unmodified files on the drive (most of the OS and applications). Writing a fragmented file doesn't shuffle everything else around. Things like large mail spool files have been about the only thing that strike me as a fragmentation issue. Most other files are rather small. > And what you wrote doesn't address the directories, which get appended > to, and presumably fragmented, at the time they are creat I was under the impression that the directory structure was recorded in manner that's different from how the files are stored. -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
