How often to fsck on frequently booted laptop

cb474 · 2011-08-27 03:50:17

I'm running Arch on a laptop that I carry around and is probably booted three or four times a day. This means that with default settings fsck runs on my partitions every 7 to 10 days or less. This is no big deal on my root partition or /home partition, where it runs pretty quickly. But on my separate very large data partitions it can take fifteen minutes, which is annoying. Of course, I can hit ctrl-c to skip the process, if I need to boot up more quickly.

Still, for my large data partitions is it really necessary to run fsck this often? It seems a little random to base how often fsck runs on number of boots, since that can vary widely and doesn't necessarily correlate to how often files are being accessed and written. I imagine on a server with hundreds of users, but which is not frequently rebooted, the need for fsck would be higher, but the frequency of the automatic running of fsck could be months apart.

Any thoughts on what's reasonable for my data partitions? Thanks.

fsckd · 2011-08-27 03:59:37

It's based on number of mounts. You can also set it for after some period of time though I don't remember how this is done. To control how many boots or reset the counter, see man tune2fs (assuming you are using ext*) and the great Arch Wiki.

bernarcher · 2011-08-27 06:55:02

I made it a habit to run a total filesystem check once a week. That way most boots run uninterrupted. And I have more control.

cb474 · 2011-08-27 07:03:45

Thanks for the replies. So bernarcher, if you run a whole check once a week it sounds like you think the average of every 7 to 10 days I'm getting is prudent (rather than changing it to once a month or something?). I thought I might leave it alone for my / partition and /home partition, where the check happens quickly, but require more mounts before a check on my larger data partitions, where it takes a long time. Do you think that's just asking for trouble?

Is there any reason why the number of mounts is a good measure of when to fsck (as opposed to time based)? I would think how frequenty the files on the partition are accessed and written would be more important than the number of mounts.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-27 03:50:17

How often to fsck on frequently booted laptop

#2 2011-08-27 03:59:37

Re: How often to fsck on frequently booted laptop

#3 2011-08-27 06:55:02

Re: How often to fsck on frequently booted laptop

#4 2011-08-27 07:03:45

Re: How often to fsck on frequently booted laptop

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