[CentOS] file system defragmentation

Tim Edwards
Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:33:23 -0000

Fong Vang wrote:
> I've read in many places that file systems on Linux do not suffer the
> same fragmentation problems of Windows systems.  No one has provided a
> clear explanation as to why fragmentation is not an issue for file
> systems such as ext2/3, reiserfs, xfs, etc.  Just curious.
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 From what I've read it seems to be because Linux file system code finds
the next available contiguous block that the file will fit completely
into on the disk. This is instead of just starting writing it to the
first available free block wether its big enough to contiguously fit the
file or not, like on FAT file systems.

Also I think that newer versions of NTFS are much more resistant to
fragmentation than FAT filesystems - to the point where you have much
less need to run defrag programs on them.

--
Tim Edwards