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#1 2007-06-26 17:58:57

BigWorm
New member
Registered: 2007-06-26
Posts: 2

DISK UTILITIES Gone?

I have Firmware 1.03 running 2 Seagate 500GB Drives in RAID1

The Disk Utilities option under tools is gone.

I don't think I ever saw it there...

Did they remove it in 1.03? What do you use to defrag ect...

Thanks,

Chad

Last edited by BigWorm (2007-06-26 18:02:50)

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#2 2007-06-26 18:31:16

shadowandy
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From: Singapore
Registered: 2007-05-26
Posts: 89
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Re: DISK UTILITIES Gone?

erm... pardon me but ext2 or ext3 filesystems need don't really need defragging since they are usually good at keeping their fragmentation level low or rather fragmentation is never a problem with ext2 or ext3 filesystems. It is not like windows.


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#3 2007-06-26 19:10:46

fordem
Member
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1938

Re: DISK UTILITIES Gone?

shadowandy wrote:

erm... pardon me but ext2 or ext3 filesystems need don't really need defragging since they are usually good at keeping their fragmentation level low or rather fragmentation is never a problem with ext2 or ext3 filesystems. It is not like windows.

Don't believe everything you read - the disk format that never becomes fragmented has yet to be invented.  If it's random access, which is what disk is, it will eventually become fragmented, if it's sequential access, such as tape, it may not, depending on how the application writes to it.

Let me explain why - you store a hundred or so small files, each one taking two blocks on the disk - and then you go and delete half of those files, and it just so happens, that you've deleted every other file (in order of creation).  What you now have on the disk is two blocks of allocated space, followed by two blocks of available space, followed by two blocks of allocated space, and so on.

At some point, maybe not immediately, you're going to write to that available space, and if the file you're storing requires (for the sake of discussion) fifty blocks, it's going to write twenty-five, two block fragments

Granted - fragmentation is less likely to be a problem with ext2/ext3 file systems, than it is with FAT or NTFS - but it has not been eliminated.

Now - about the removal of the file system check utility .....

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#4 2007-06-26 23:43:42

frodo
Member
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: 2007-01-17
Posts: 259

Re: DISK UTILITIES Gone?

Read these faqs on fragmentation and linux and you might change your mind.

http://cbbrowne.com/info/defrag.html
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:EXT2_Fragmentation

Anyway EXT2 is using a much better algorithm for allocating blocks when writing.

"The ext2 filesystem attempts to keep fragmentation at a minimum, by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Ext2 effectively always allocates the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. For ext2, it is therefore seldom necessary to worry about fragmentation."

You should also consider... what if you use raid 0? How should the defrag tool be aware that every other block (dependent on raid block size) is stored on a different disk. I.e defraging is really a PC issue.

Also consider that you might have more than one process accessing your disk. Effectivly ruining any defraging that you have done.

Last edited by frodo (2007-06-26 23:50:47)

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#5 2007-06-27 03:24:59

shadowandy
Member
From: Singapore
Registered: 2007-05-26
Posts: 89
Website

Re: DISK UTILITIES Gone?

fordem wrote:

Let me explain why - you store a hundred or so small files, each one taking two blocks on the disk - and then you go and delete half of those files, and it just so happens, that you've deleted every other file (in order of creation).  What you now have on the disk is two blocks of allocated space, followed by two blocks of available space, followed by two blocks of allocated space, and so on.

At some point, maybe not immediately, you're going to write to that available space, and if the file you're storing requires (for the sake of discussion) fifty blocks, it's going to write twenty-five, two block fragments

Well, with the bitmap status kept in ext2 and ext3 filesystems + various information in the superblock. Guess it will be smart enough to allocate data to the blocks in one physical sweep of the actuator of the harddisk resulting in minimal seek time. Even though it seems like fragmented, the worst case scenario is only incurring the time lost for changing of cylinder.

At the end of the day, I still believe that ext2 and ext3 filesystems don't need defragging.


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