defragmentation in FreeBSD 4.11

[Freminlins]

Gayn Winters wrote:
 
> What I get from reading this article is that if the use of the file
> system is to store lots of small files, then use a small block size.  Am
> I missing something?

No and yes! There is a minimum block and fragment size. In this case
there were not enough contiguous fragments to enable an 8K file to be
created. Without checking I believe Solaris uses 8K blocks.

> Also, in most situations, buying a big enough disk is far better than
> worrying about what happens when a not-big-enough disk starts to get
> full.

Indeed. But... in the case I linked to there was apparently plenty of
free space, just not enough free contiguous space. The author also
implies that a bigger disk would not solve the problem:

  "it creates and deletes tons of small files and thus the fragmentation 
  over a period of time."

As mentioned though I have never seen this myself despite running very
busy mail and web servers with what must be billions of files being
created/deleted in that time.

It certainly grabbed my attention so I thought it may be of interest to others.

> -gayn

Frem.