On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Grant<emailgr...@gmail.com> wrote: > I know Linux systems aren't supposed to become fragmented, but I've > also read that it can happen eventually. I'm on ext3. I've read that > ext4 will have a defragmenter but that it doesn't have one yet.
It's not that they aren't supposed to become fragmented, it is that they try to avoid it. There is a big difference, and things like streaming writes (downloads, bittorrents, etc) can cause extreme fragmentation. The time-honored way of fixing this is "backup, delete, restore". In my case my simple defragmenter is to move a file to tmpfs and then move it back to the hard drive. I always do this to files I'm about to burn to a CD/DVD to ensure the read speed is optimal. > Has anyone tried the shake defragmenter? Yes, nothing has blown up yet. :)
