how to quickly remove millions of files?

unittester · 11-27-2008, 06:11 PM

hi
i need to remove the directory with millions of small files (less then 100k each). my filesystem is ext3. when i run "rm -vfd mydir" i have got "rm: cannot remove `mydir': Is a directory".
"rm -rvf mydir" works, but it works very-very slow. in fact i need some weeks to remove files recursively. is there another way to unlink all this files?

jstephens84 · 11-27-2008, 06:36 PM

not that I know of. but try leaving out the v and just do a

Code:

rm -fr

maybe the verbose output is slowing things down.

syg00 · 11-27-2008, 06:52 PM

Maybe check the mount attributes - noatime and nodiratime (can be set by remount).
Check out this thread - shouldn't take too long for the delete.

billymayday · 11-27-2008, 06:54 PM

I guess these aren't on a partition by themselves are they (or with something else that could be easily copied off)? Then you could just reformat.

salter · 11-27-2008, 10:08 PM

Actually 'rm -rf' will not care about non-empty directories.

Having millions of files might already have fragmented your disk to an unbearable amount, maybe you already notice slow performance on that disk. You can also try 'smartctl' to find out how healthy your hard disk is.

If the drive does not contain system files, and you know what data you want to keep, then copy the needed data to a safe place and reformat the partition.

jstephens84 · 11-27-2008, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salter

Actually 'rm -rf' will not care about non-empty directories.

Having millions of files might already have fragmented your disk to an unbearable amount, maybe you already notice slow performance on that disk. You can also try 'smartctl' to find out how healthy your hard disk is.

If the drive does not contain system files, and you know what data you want to keep, then copy the needed data to a safe place and reformat the partition.

Depending on what the disk was formated in it will not suffer from fragmentation due to how ext2 and 3 and all other filesystems attempt to store its files. Here is a good explanation. Not saying it can't be just that it is highly unlikely. http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/ind..._defragmenting