Re: [cobalt-users] Fragmentation

[Colin Smith <colin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Pierre Chopot wrote:

> Hello Is fragmentation an issue on Linux/Cobalt systems ? (Typical
> Windows user question...sorry..) I am not concerned at all, but I'd
> like to know ! Thanks .

Not really. The Linux file system is designed in a way to reduce
fragmentation significantly. It doesn't get fragmented to the same extent
as FAT. In addition on a multi-user system, file access is extremely
unlikely to be sequential with different users requesting access to
different files at the same time. Hence the buffer cache.

E.g. The home file system on my workstation is 5% fragmented and that's
after 3 years of use. Any performance gain I would recieve by
defragmenting the files would be negligible.


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