non-contiguous vs Fragmentation
Hello everyone,
This is a question I've had for a while.
I know Linux uses the ext2 filesystem which is supposed to be
anti-fragmenting. Once in a while, when I boot up, I get a message saying I
have reached maximal mount count and I have to sit and wait a few minutes
before I can continue with the boot up. I have recently noticed that,
during boot up, I see my hard drive is 9.7 % non - contiguous. I'm not sure
what this means.
According to webopedia.com:
fragmentation - Refers to the condition of a disk in which files are divided
into pieces scattered around the disk. Fragmentation occurs naturally when
you use a disk frequently, creating, deleting, and modifying files. At some
point, the operating system needs to store parts of a file in noncontiguous
clusters. This is entirely invisible to users, but it can slow down the
speed at which data is accessed because the disk drive must search through
different parts of the disk to put together a single file.
What then is the difference between non-contiguous and fragmentation? Is
one worse than the other? How can my hard drive be 9.7 % non-contiguous if
the ext2 filesystem is supposed to be anti-fragmenting?
Is there a way to make my hard drive contiguous again? I thought that there
were no linux defragmenters.
Thank you for reading this email, I know it's really long. Well, I'd like
to hear your responses.
Andrew
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