In this article I will discuss this very issue and then I will show you how you can test the fragmentation of a mount point on your Linux drive and then defragment that mount point.

What it isn’t necessary

This is the question I get nearly every time I tell a user that it is not necessary to defrag a Linux drive. The first and foremost reason you do not have to defrag a system is that the majority of files on a system need super-user permission to move. Oh sure you can move anything you want around in your ~/ directory. But try to move anything in /usr/bin, /opt, /sbin or any other directory outside of ~/ (without super user permission) and see how far you get. What this means is that during general, every-day usage the vast majority of files are not being moved around on your system. The only files you really need concern yourself with are the ones in your home directory – and those files have little to nothing to do with the performance of your machine.

Another difference is that some other operating systems try their best to place files as close the front of the drive as they can – without gaps. When files get moved around, these gaps appear, making it hard for the drive to be read. The Linux operating system does not do this. Instead the system starts in the center and places files not in a random fashion, but doesn’t concern itself with placing files next to one another in the start of the drive. So when spaces are created it’s not a big deal because the system is used to those spaces. The only time you will notice defragmentation on a Linux drive is when the drive is over 95% full. At that point the seeming “randomness” of placement will have caught up and the spaces between files might not allow for the addition of more files.

So when this happens…is it possible to defragment? Yes it is.

Fragmentation check

I discovered a very handy Perl script that will allow you to check a mount point for fragmentation. The script can be found here in the discussion. Copy that code into a file called fragmentation.pl and give that file executable permissions with the command chmod u+x fragmentation.pl. Now issue the command:

sudo ./fragmentation.pl /home/USER

Where USER is the user who’s home directory you want to check.

You will most likely be surprised at how how low the number is. It will give you a report like:

1.30108895488615% non contiguous files, 1.01067741479282 average fragments.

Defragging

Now, say you do want to defragment that home directory. You can do so with this handy piece of code. Save that piece of code in a file called defrag.pl and give it executable permissions with the command chmod u+x defrag.pl. Now issue the command:

sudo ./defrag.pl /home/USER

Where USER is the user who’s home directory you want to defragment.

Now this task can take some time, depending upon the size of your ~/ and how much is in that directory. But once it is done, issue the fragmentation.pl command again and I bet you will find the results positive.

Final thoughts

Although you will most likely never have to run this, it is nice to know that it is possible. The Linux system rarely gets fragmented to the point you will ever notice the slightest hiccup…at least not until that drive is nearly full. And considering the cost to size ratio of today’s drives, the possibility of them filling up is slim. And if they do, you’ll probably just go out and buy another drive.

Puran Defrag comes with all the basic defragmentation options one would expect from such a software and many advanced options that are usually only found in commercial defragmenters.

The software’s main interface is divided into four sections that are divided by the tabs in the top row. The program starts with the basic defragmenter that can be used to defragment one or multiple partitions of the computer system.

This tab can also be used to analyze the defragmentation and to schedule a boot time defrag.

The Additional Operations tab offers advanced defragmentation options:

• Fill gaps to avoid frequent fragmentation
• Optimize directories for faster system access
• Free some space for Windows temporary files on faster disk area
• Boost overall system speed with Puran Intelligent Optimizer
• Exclude files from the process
• Exclude files with a size between x and y
• Enable Windows Explorer integration to defragment files and folders with a right-click
• Delete files in a list before defragmentation

The third tab can be used to schedule automatic defragmentations of the computer system. Puran Defrag is a very sophisticated and comfortable disk defragmenter. It is available for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. A free and commercial version of the program is offered at the developer’s website. Both versions do however provide the same functionality and the free version can also be used in a commercial environment.

Several options are added as start menu entries after installing the latest MyDefrag version on the computer system. This includes running an analysis of all connected hard drives, defragmenting all of them, running a fast optimize script or to optimize flash drives. The real strength of MyDefrag are the extensive command line parameters and scripting possibilities that make it possible to individualize the defragmentation process.

Quite a few graphical user interfaces have been created for JkDefrag in the past. It is very likely that at least some of these will be made available for MyDefrag as well. This will help inexperienced users and those that do not like working with the command line to make use of the full functionality of the file defragmentation software.

MyDefrag is available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2009 as well as Windows 2000.

We covered our share of defragmenting tools in the past including the popular Defraggler, Ultimate Defrag, Joshua’s overview of defragmentation tools but also specialized programs like Page Defrag, Registry Defrag or Source Engine games defrag.

Ultra Defrag is another disk defragmenting software for the Windows operating system. The program is Open Source and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. Some of its key features is the speedy defragmentation process and the low resource usage while running the process. It comes with an installer or as a portable version and can be run from a graphical user interface or the command line.

The defragmentation software can defrag entire system partitions or single directories and files if it is added to the Windows context menu during installation. The command line version of the disk defragmenting software comes with several advanced options like excluding files from the defragmentation process. Users can also launch Ultra Defrag during system boot to be able to defragment the system files that are locked when Windows is running.

After installing the defragmenting software it can be accessed by right-clicking a file or directory and selecting the FragExt entry in the context menu. That’s a natural way of performing defragmentation on files. It is however problematic for users who want to defragment their files in one go regularly because that’s almost impossible to achieve with FragExt because of the way it handles directories. The disadvantage that we spoke earlier about is that it will not automatically include subdirectories in the defragmentation process.

Which leaves it to be an excellent effective way of defragmenting files in Windows Explorer. FragExt does add another interesting aspect to Windows Explorer. It extends the File Properties dialog and adds a Fragments tab to it.

This makes it relatively easy to check the fragmentation of selected files. FragExt is compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 / 2008 including their 64-bit editions.

However I came across Piriform Defraggler the other day and I was interested in one feature it had… individual file and folder defragmentation. At first I thought this was pretty superfluous considering it would be difficult to notice much of an effect defragmenting a single file or folder…  however I have a laptop and not a huge hard drive so a complete defragment doesn’t take huge amount of time anyway.

If you have a large hard drive however then this could be a very useful tool. I’m thinking of large music collections or DVD rips which go into the hundreds of gigabytes worth of space.

Using Piriform Defraggler to defragment just your music or video collection could have some kind of small effect on performance. Apart from this it has all the other basic features and even a nice monitoring tool which for some strange reason was omitted from the Vista defragmentation application.

Unfortunately there are no scheduling options but it’s simple and works fast enough to keep most people happy.

For anything more advanced I recommend IOBit Smart Defrag. This has the kind of scheduling options you may be looking for as well the ability to defragment and optimise multiple hard drive partitions.

The best thing about Smart Defrag is that it can be set to start up whenever the computer is left idle. I think schedules are a pain as you might in the middle of something when a scheduled task starts up so instead running when the computer is idle is the best solution.

When you start Ultimate Defrag for the first time you notice that is is displaying an image of your hard drive in the main pane and information i the left pane. You can select a different hard drive in the left pane or hit the analyze button to analyze the defragmentation level of the hard drive.

Once the hard disk has been analyzed one out of six methods to defragment and optimize the hard disk can be selected from the left pane. This includes the following options:

• Fragmented Files Only: Defragments the hard drive, comparable to the classic Windows defragmentation
• Consolidate: Places all directories next to each other on the hard drive to reduce seek time
• Folder / File Name: Places files and folders on the hard drive based on folder name order
• Recency: ideal for data drives. Sorts files and folders according to last access dates, modify dates and file creation dates.
• Volatile: A variation of the Recency optimization. Will order folders last modification data and files alphabetically
• Auto: The program uses its own optimization algorithm to defrag the hard disk and optimize its performance.

The user can select specific files and folders that should receive the best positions on the hard disk to achieve the best performance possible. This can be for instance the Windows directory, a game, dynamic link libraries or applications. On the other hand files and folders that do not require the best performance can be selected to be placed in the slower sectors of the hard drive. This includes archives, images and backup files.

The help file of Ultimate Defrag is excellent. It gives an explanation of hard disk performance at the beginning, explains all the settings and functions in a non-geeky way and even provides examples of how to optimize computers based on usage, say gaming, office and home.

The Ultimate Defrag Free version is available at Freeware Geeks. I would like to mention that I’m not a lab and I do not have the possibility to check the performance before and after the defragmentation scientifically. My computer is relatively new with not enough files to test the new performance. It does make sense however that this could indeed increase system performance.

You can check the fragmentation level of a hard drive using the command line and the command defrag.exe c: /a. The tool then checks the specified hard drive and report back if it is fragmented or not.

A script by Ramesh Srinivasan uses this report to determine if a hard drive should be defragmented. The Visual Basic script can be used in the Windows scheduler or simply executed during startup or by double-clicking the file.

I copied the file to a text file and zipped it already. You can download the script here or visit the website above where the script is displayed in text form.

I’m lazy. I do not want to right-click the drive, select Properties, change to the Tools tab and click on Defragment Now. Fortunately for users like me there is a workaround that adds the option to defragment your hard drive to the right-click menu when you perform that operation on a drive. We only need to add one new key to the registry and the option appears whenever we right-click a drive from then on.

Open your registry by hitting the windows key and R. The run dialog appears, enter regedit and hit enter. Navigate to the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell. If the shell key is missing create it by right-clicking on Drive and selecting NEW, KEY and enter the name shell. Create a subkey the same way naming it defragnow. Double-click the default value on the left side and add a name for the command that will appear in the right-click menu, defrag for instance.

Right-click on defragnow and create a new subkey called command. Double-Click the Default entry on the left side again and enter the following value: defrag.exe %1 -v

Once done close the registry and right-click a drive to see if the new option defrag appears. If it does test it by left-clicking on it, a new window should appear and the defragmentation should automatically start.