Re: [expert] Defrag counterpart in MDK

[Norvell Spearman]

"Brash, Matthew" wrote:
> 
> Supposedly defragging is unnessecary in Linux.  The Ext2 file system doesn't
> get fragmented or something. Can anyone confirm/trash this idea?

I wrote a few days ago about this:  Ext2 filesystem does an excellent
job of limiting---not eliminating---fragmentation.  A defrag program
does exist.  Seems it was written for the first extended
filesystem---which, BTW, had a harder time with fragmentation.  The
performance gains after running defrag on an ext2 do not seem (on
average) to be that great.  Lots more useful info is available at the
links below.  The second link is the source for defrag which contains an
interesting README comparing bootup times before and after running
defrag.

        http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2.html
        ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/ext2fs/defrag-0.70.tar.gz

---Norvell Spearman