Defrag using a Linux system

CrimZon · 03-28-2004, 05:33 PM

I'm trying to find a program that allows me to defrag my HD through Linux.

Before anyone tells me that "Linux doesn't fragment", bear with me.

I have a 60 GB drive I access from both Win and Mandrake, Obviously, Win is the culprit for fragmenting the drive in the first place; however, using the drive in MDK appears to have little or no effect on the fragmentation on that drive.

From what I've seen, ' fsck ' and similar programs only check for errors.

Only for games and a handfull of programs do I actually use Win, MDK for everything else. Quite frankly, Win's ' Disk Defragmenter ' sucks.

ps - i found a program at freshmeat.net, aptly called ' defrag ' , but this seems to be back along the lines of filesystem checking (like ' fsck ') than anything.

Simply put: How can I defragment a HD in a Linux environment?

thanx in advance

Tinkster · 03-28-2004, 06:12 PM

I don't know of any Linux tools to defragment FAT32
partitions ... one way of achieving this (if you have
enough spare disk-space in Linux) would be to
tar --remove-files -cvzf /<big_filesystem>/fat32.tar.gz /<fat32>/

After success, remove any possible remainders
(empty direcotries) ...

tar xvzf /<big_filesystem>/fat32.tar.gz -C /<fat32>/

If you have LOTS of space, and speed is more
important, omit the z :)

Cheers,
Tink

karlan · 03-28-2004, 07:11 PM

I don't know how it linux, but I found this nifty utility which defrags ext2 partitions( ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/sct/defrag/ )? I haven't used it yet

vi0lat0r · 03-28-2004, 07:30 PM

The one true defragmentation method:

Code:

mkdir newdir
cp -ar currentdir/* newdir/
mv currentdir/ olddir/
mv newdir/ currentdir/
rm -rf olddir/

Works like a charm.

CrimZon · 03-28-2004, 08:10 PM

Looks like the only real defrag is the gool ol' move-n-moveagain trick.

Hmmmmm. . . .oh well.

thanks anyhow guys!

Soulful93 · 03-28-2004, 10:02 PM

Oh, this brings up something I've been wondering about.

From what I've read and heard there really isn't any need to defrag a linux system due to the fact that it doesn't spit data out in the sloppy manner that windows does.

Does anyone know if this is true or am i offbase?

Tinkster · 03-28-2004, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Soulful93
Does anyone know if this is true or am i offbase?

That's correct - Linux' filesystems newer than ext
are "fragmentation repellent" which means that
fragmentation CAN occur, but is less likely. It
only happens if you fill a partition pretty much
to the brink, delete small files and write big ones.

Cheers,
Tink