Arch Linux

mladen

Member

From: Home

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 46

Disk defragment / optimize ....

Hi all    ,

is there a Linux equivalent to Windows' disk defragment? Something that'll move data to the disk perifery?
I'm using an old 3200rpm disk and this could make some difference...

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No past, no future. It's all one long, never ending present.

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,912

Website

Re: Disk defragment / optimize ....

Not that I am aware of...Linux file structure is different to windows , so there is no need for defrag....

HTH

Mr Green

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Mr Green

zeppelin

Member

From: Athens, Greece

Registered: 2004-03-05

Posts: 807

Website

Re: Disk defragment / optimize ....

as Mr.Green ( :mrgreen: ) said, ext3 reiserfs xfs jfs etc have minimum defragment, so don't worry about it. if you have 3200 rpm hd I guess you also have somehow low memory (64k?). so what you need is minimum usage of swap [memory on the disk]. and that can only be succeedded by adding more memory or by using apps that go with minimalistic needs. KDE/GNOME is not the best in this case
try XFCE4 or even WindowMaker or a *Box for a start

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mladen

Member

From: Home

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 46

Re: Disk defragment / optimize ....

Hi guys  8),

Thanks!
Yes, I know that Linux fs's do not/less fragment, but I was after something that would physicaly reorganize data on the disk i.e. moving it to the "faster", outer disk sectors. Or organize it in logical chains (by date, access, name or size... name it), so read head has to travell/jump less.

This machine has 128Mb RAM and blackbox runs nice. But whenever some of the KDE apps is accessed or KDE used (my wife and daughter), or Firefox or... any bigger app, it becomes a slug. Only thing working is my hd.

On the other note, there could be a workaround with my swap size - I got 256MB of it (twice the RAM), but is rarely REALY used (according to gkrellm pointers)? Any hints on this one?

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No past, no future. It's all one long, never ending present.

cs25x

Member

Registered: 2004-05-04

Posts: 150

Re: Disk defragment / optimize ....

that hard drive activity you see is swap in motion. KDE is like that, slow - and eats ram. Even with 256M of swap, you could probably profit from even more, say 512M. If you add real ram, it will speed things up. Until then, you are going to have speed problems with KDE apps, so try  ICEWM for the win users,and use a lighter browser, like Dillo. Here is the mem usage on my machine :
(using ICEWM)
Firefox :     53M
X:               23M
RealPlayer 10M
You see how easy it is to use ram? If this were your machine, it would be swapping like crazy. in fact I run with no swap because that is the way I like it, but I have plenty or ram, and sometimes firefox will die because the system runs out of memory. I find that preferable to the swap thrashing when things get tight.

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--(*(cs25x--));