How do I defragment a hard drive?

Gogul · 03-10-2006, 06:28 AM

To defragment the hard drive, is there a program available with Linux by default, or do I need to download an application to handle such a task?

Any help would be appreciated

reddazz · 03-10-2006, 06:30 AM

You don't need to defragment your hard drive in Linux.

gilead · 03-10-2006, 06:32 AM

You don't have to do this - the first pages of googling on "linux defragment hard disk" returns mostly hits about defragmenting windows drives in preparation for installing linux.

Are you having a problem with your hard disk?

Gogul · 03-10-2006, 06:56 AM

Thanks for the help

My problem is I need a screenshot to show I'm able to defragment a hard drive for a college assignment, though security policys stop me from doing it at college and not having windows installed means I can't do it otherwise.

For some reason it doesn't matter which operating system I use. My sister has just got a mac, do you think you would need to defragment a hardrive on the mac?

bigrigdriver · 03-10-2006, 07:10 AM

Just a thought, but, would it satisfy the requirements of the course if the screenshot only shows the windows defrag application screen setup to defrag (even though you can't complete the operatio n on the school lab)?

That would at least indicate that you know which application to use and how to set it up to defrag.

KimVette · 03-10-2006, 07:17 AM

If you had searched you'd have found many threads on the subjects covering the fact that drive defragmentation is not necessary in Linux. Linux filesystems can become defragmented, but typically you would only run into this if you edit many large files and are running low on space (doing things such as nonlinear video editing) and even in those extreme cases a *nix filesystem will outperform a Windows filesystem (be it FAT or NTFS).

However, there is a defrag program for ext2 filesystems (google for it!) but a way to ensure the filesystem is defragged is to back everything up to another drive (or partition) and then copy everything back.

Or, you could go to your school lab and take a screenshot of defrag there.

Worst case? You can write a quick paper explaining why *nix filesystems are so much more efficient and better-engineered, and educate your professor and classmates on some of the benefits of *nix over Windows.

Gogul · 03-10-2006, 07:24 AM

Thanks for that.

I could probably get away with getting a screenshot off google, so there should not be a problem with that (I hope).

In my defence KimVette I did search for similar threads though I came up with HDD problems, so I didn't really notice any on defragmentation. Well thanks for the help anyway..

PROBLEM SOLVED!