[CentOS] Disk De-Fraging in Linux

[Jim Perrin]

On 9/20/07, Al Sparks <data345 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Why?  What's different between NTFS and ext2/3 that defragging is
> needed in one but not the other?

Mostly it has to do with the way information is ordered and written to
the filesystem. The old FAT filesystem (and to a lesser extent NTFS)
was sloppy, and needed some periodic cleanup. EXT2/3 are a bit more
elegant in their design and structure the data such that a defrag
isn't really necessary. The filesystem *will* check itself every 180
days or every so many reboots via fsck. This is configurable with
tune2fs.

That's basically the high level explanation for the differences. Once
you start getting down into the really low level stuff, that's where I
fall asleep no matter how much caffiene I've had.


-- 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell