Arch Linux

twiistedkaos

Member

Registered: 2006-05-20

Posts: 666

[split] filesystem fragmentation

In other words... In rc.conf, under "INTERFACES", is "lo" listed? E.g. 'INTERFACES=(lo eth0)'.

Also, what filesystem are you using? If it's XFS, try installing xfsdump and running xfs_fsr - XFS can get very fragmented after a while.

This really isn't relevant to his post, but more to your reply. You mentioned defragging, Is it possible / needed to defrag a ext3 filesystem? I've read in multiple places that it isn't relevant and can be dangerous.

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: [split] filesystem fragmentation

In other words... In rc.conf, under "INTERFACES", is "lo" listed? E.g. 'INTERFACES=(lo eth0)'.

Also, what filesystem are you using? If it's XFS, try installing xfsdump and running xfs_fsr - XFS can get very fragmented after a while.

This really isn't relevant to his post, but more to your reply. You mentioned defragging, Is it possible / needed to defrag a ext3 filesystem? I've read in multiple places that it isn't relevant and can be dangerous.

Fragmentation still occurs in UNIX filesystems, just not a often as it does with FAT32 systems. An easy way to compact a filesystem is to just move the entire contents to another location and then move it back to the original location. I think this is what pacman-optimize does, but I'm not sure.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: [split] filesystem fragmentation

IIRC, XFS and Reiser4 are the only filesystems that have big fragmentation problems.

T-Dawg

Forum Fellow

From: Charlotte, NC

Registered: 2005-01-29

Posts: 2,736

Re: [split] filesystem fragmentation

split.
Filesystem fragmentation in linux should be very miniscule. Something under double digits percentage wise. I checked my ext3 volume not too long ago and had something like 5% or .5% or some crazy shiznit.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: [split] filesystem fragmentation

Actually my home partition is 20% noncontiguous, has something to do with my music collection I think... Internal fragmentation probably. / is only 0.3% though.

(If you're worried about internal fragmentation eating up space you can use ReiserFS with tail-packing - I know some benchmarks say that's a big performance hit but in my experience it's quite negligable.)

twiistedkaos

Member

Registered: 2006-05-20

Posts: 666

Re: [split] filesystem fragmentation

Hehe, thanks all for your knowledge, I have no need to really defrag, I was just wondering if it was needed for an ext3 filesystem because I havn't really heard anything about defragging until this topic . Again, thanks ofr sharing.