[MLUG] fsck ext3

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 01:39:40AM -0500, Jeremy Chapman wrote:
> Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> Is it desirable to fsck a disk occasionally? I usually see something like
> >> /dev/sdc1: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
> >> /dev/sdc1: 41807/61063168 files (6.8% non-contiguous),
> >> 85260186/122096000 blocks
> >>     
> >
> >   
> >> which I take to mean the filesystem was modified to be more contiguous
> >> (aka fragmented?).
> >>     
> >
> > "contiguous" is somewhat opposite to "fragmented", but in any case, no,
> > AFAIK ext2/ext3's fsck does not do any defragmentation, so if it only
> > output the above, it means it checked the filesystem and found
> > no inconsistency.
> >
> >
> >         Stefan
> Yes, sorry, meant defragmented. So, if a disk is badly dis-contiguous
> (one I checked was 34 %), nothing to do but dd it somewhere and back,
> for ext3?

Doesn't dd just do a block-by-block copy?  Wouldn't it just copy all the 
fragments and faithfully reproduce the fragmentation?

-- hendrik