How does Linux write to the hard disk?

[Wesley Jessup]

A sort of explanation.

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Uni ... ayout.html

[Wesley Jessup]

Helpful guide, though it did not answer the question "How does Linux write to the hard disk?"

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu ... tions.html

[Wesley Jessup]

Beginning to bite off more than I can chew regarding the question "How does Linux write to the hard disk?"
ext2- no journaling
ext3- ext2 with journaling (metadata and data)
reiserfs - journaling (metadata only)
How does Linux write to the hard disk? It depends on the filesystem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_journaling
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6741

[Wesley Jessup]

The last part answers the reason I wanted to know "How does Linux write to the hard disk?"
Esentially, more space is allowed between files, in order to allow for expansion. Fragmentation is not a problem untill the disk is ~80% full.

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index. ... ragmenting

[Wesley Jessup]

Maybe fragmentation isn't so bad, anyway.
And, if it is just copy the data on the fragmented partition to a seperate disk, delete the data on the fragmented partition then restore the backed up data.

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index. ... n-on-linux

[marcromansky]

Interesting, cause I have never heard fragmentation being an issue on Linux. I have not heard of issues when volumes fill up, but there could be an issue when drives fill up. To make it more confusing, I wonder how this is all affected when a drive or portion of a drive is in a pool?

[Kayla Smith]

[quote="Wesley Jessup"]The last part answers the reason I wanted to know "How does Linux write to the hard disk?"
Esentially, more space is allowed between files, in order to allow for expansion. Fragmentation is not a problem untill the disk is ~80% full.

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index. ... ragmenting[/quote]

Is this only ext3? Or is this how ext2 works as well?