RE: hdd defragmentation / e2defrag
All right then. It's true that I was first raised on DOS so a FAT HAD to be
defragmented often.
Thanks for your comments, I'll therefore forget about defragmenting my HDD.
--Stéphane
-----Original Message-----
From: Curt Howland [mailto:Howland@Priss.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 11:49 AM
To: debian-laptop@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: hdd defragmentation / e2defrag
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Hi. Not to put water on your fire, but a *nix system is inherently
different from a MS style one. Defraging is pretty much not needed
for two reasons.
First, files are written to a location on the disk where the file will
fit whole first, then in two pieces if the disk is really full, and
so on, so that fragmentation is a rare event and eventually self
correcting. Compare this to MS, where the first open sector is used
regardless of whether the file will fit. Fragmentation is the rule.
Second, Linux is a multi-task system where having your disk heads
flying around actually aids in accessing tasks, where the system can
recognize "Gee, the heads are close to that one, lets grab that first
then move over and get the rest." Opportunistic, as it were.
In closing, back in 1995 when I first asked this same question, the
folks at the time suggested that the hazards of running the defrag
far outweighed the possible minor benefits.
Curt-
On Tuesday 25 May 2004 13:45, Provost, Stephane was heard to say:
> Hi again,
>
> I also want to defrag my drive. When I ran e2defrag, it said the
> drive should be unmounted (ok easy, I guess I'll need a bootdisk, I
> want to defrag /dev/hda0) and also I'll have to run the bootloader
> configuration tool because the image may have moved.
>
> What does the latter part mean ? I thought the kernel image was
> just a file and the bootloader lived in the MBR no matter what ?
> What is the magical instruction to reconfigure lilo ? I don't want
> to screw the system up and not be able to reboot (gasp).
>
> Thanks !
>
> --Stéphane
- --
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central
planning advocates in American history
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