Arch Linux

userzero

Member

Registered: 2008-08-28

Posts: 14

Does this reduce fragmentation?

Hello! I recently made a backup of my root partition by doing a simple cp -a. Then I reformatted my root partition and again copied the backup to the root partition with a simple cp -a. Everything is working like before, but I was wondering if this procedure would reduce fragmentation on a filesystem that has been in use for a long time? This only took about 10 minutes so I think it might be worthwhile. I only use one partition for my arch install...

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: Does this reduce fragmentation?

In most cases, yes.

dunc

Member

From: Glasgow, UK

Registered: 2007-06-18

Posts: 559

Re: Does this reduce fragmentation?

http://vleu.net/shake/:

Shake is a defragmenter that runs in userspace, without the need of patching the kernel and while the system is used (for now, on GNU/Linux only).
There is nothing magic in that : it just works by rewriting fragmented files. But it has some heuristics that could make it more efficient than other tools, including defrag and, maybe, xfs_fsr.

It's in the AUR. Might be a bit better than just using cp.

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0 Ok, 0:1