Optimizing data organization on disk
A Good Fit
Defragfs optimizes files on a system, allowing videos to load faster and large archives to open in the blink of an eye.
In this age of digital content, data collections in normal households are growing rapidly. Whereas just a few years ago, hard drives with a couple hundred gigabytes were perfectly sufficient, today, multiple-terabyte disk storage capacity is commonly used.
The Linux filesystems ext2, ext3, and ext4 don't need that much attention, but over time, after innumerable writes and deletes, data becomes fragmented. This slows down not just the hard disk itself, but also the entire system – sometimes noticeably. Thus, power users, even on Linux, are advised to reorganize their data occasionally.
Fragmented
Fragmentation is something that primarily affects larger files that will not fit completely into the free space on a hard drive because of a lack of sufficiently large, contiguous space; thus, a file will reside in different segments (see the "Theory" box). When such a file is read, the read heads move to a new position several times to gather the pieces. This movement takes time and continues to increase on heavily fragmented disks.
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