Defragment Your Cell?

[Dad-Bill]

On my home windows based computer I use a program called Defraggler to defrag my hard drive; it is a very good defrag software program. While I had my fascinate plugged into the computer I started the Defraggler program and saw that the cell has a FAT32 file system and showed that it was fragmented. I was able to successfully defrag my cell using Defraggler. I know that Google doesn't use a windows operating system, thank God, but their operating system and programs do fragment.

Does anyone else defrag their cell phone or do you think that it is not even necessary?

[bigfrank69]

Now I want to find out about that too as i defrag my computer all the time. Is there an app in the market for it Dad?

[Dad-Bill]

bigfrank69 I have not seen any. You can download Defraggler, it is a free program. The company has a few computer utilities for free and all of them are very good. If you are interested in Defraggler here is the link http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

[DonM]

I can't speak for cell phone technology but these phones are Linux based. Linux computers don't need to be defragged.

Linux is designed to fragment by placing the entire file in one contiguous location on the hard drive. This will increase the speed at which files are located on the hard drive by locating the entire file at once instead of like a Windows hard drive where the files can be segmented and located at many different points on the physical drive requiring the read/write head of the drive to go to various locations before the file can be read as a whole. Windows puts new info written to the hard drive in the last location that something was deleted. If the space doesn't fit the size of the file then part of the file is placed somewhere else that equals file fragmentation. This continuing fragmentation is what requires a defrag program. The difference is Linux places the entire file in one spot. If the next spot on the list isn't big enough Linux will find a empty spot big enough to work. Windows mindlessly uses the next spot on the list regardless if it is big enough or not.

 I don't know how cell phone memory is designed to work but if it works like a PC then defragging one can actually decrease performance of a Linux based system.

[Dad-Bill]

DonM I knew that the fascinate is based on Linux. I didn't know that Linux used a FAT32 file system and was surprised to see it, I thought only windows used FAT32. Are you saying that even though Defraggler shows a percentage of fragmentation, that the cell is not fragmented? Isn't a FAT32 file system the same whether it is a PC or cell? Hypothetically, if the newer solid state hard drives, which compares to the solid state memory of the cell, used a FAT32 file system wouldn't it be fragmented if Defraggler showed fragmentation?

I understand that contiguous files are what makes accessing them faster and this is what defragmenting is supposed to accomplish. So in the case of Linux and a PC, once the defragmenting is done there should be contiguous files even if a space is placed between files. Once the file is defragmented, there are no fragments in the file.

When I did defragment the fascinate, the percentage of fragmentation was not really high to begin with, maybe 5-11% so when I finished I didn't really see much of a difference in performance. I did feel better knowing that the cell was not fragmented!

[M91-30]

linux is designed to work off the extended file system (ext2,3, and 4), though it can use ntfs, fat16, and fat 32, also, our phones don't. however, the data on the phone itself is changed around so little, it's not an issue. as far as the sd card goes, that could be another story. on 32GB cards, I recommend ntfs (the phone should support it), this will eliminate any need for defragmenting, though it's only recommended for 32GB flash cards because of overhead. on smaller drives, fat 32 is not so good, but it's what you're stuck with, so if you change out your data a lot, you can get a program as described, or you can just plug it into your windows machine and defrag it from there.

and, yes, fat 32 is the same crappy file system no matter what it's on.

[Dad-Bill]

Most of the fragmentation was on the SD card.

[M91-30]

I tried ntfs on the sd card, as I have a 32gb card, and the phone couldn't read it. the phone uses a modified fat system, but shouldn't be an issue for fragmentation because of how it's used.

[DonM]

My lack of familarity with Samsung's Android is showing here. I didn't realize that was the file system in use but it does make sense. It would be much easier for a Windows system to see the file structure.

That also explains why those who move to a voodoo kernel experience such an improvement in performance, going from FAT32 to Ext4 would be like getting out of your Pinto and jumping into a 'vette.

[M91-30]

---

DonM wrote:

My lack of familarity with Samsung's Android is showing here. I didn't realize that was the file system in use but it does make sense. It would be much easier for a Windows system to see the file structure.

That also explains why those who move to a voodoo kernel experience such an improvement in performance, going from FAT32 to Ext4 would be like getting out of your Pinto and jumping into a 'vette.

---

exactly, the ext4 file system is far superior to fat, or even ntfs. though ntfs is far superior to fat, it still is a dinosaur compared to ext4. though, I'm not sure if the voodoo kernal actually lets you switch the SD card's file system or not, and the phone doesn't use fat, it uses some other file system, I believe.

[DonM]

They use RFS - Robust FAT File System (sorta sounds like an oxymoron) got this off Samsung Global:

In today's mobile industry, it is expected that more mobile phone manufacturers will adopt embedded Linux in their mobile phone's operating system due to its low cost and the widest hardware support.

SAMSUNG RFS (Robust FAT File System) is an embedded file system to use OneNAND flash memory as the storage on your Linux based product. SAMSUNG RFS is a highly optimized software solution to manage file on OneNAND flash memory. It runs on Linux and is fully compatible with FAT16/32 file system standards. For 'robustness', SAMSUNG RFS provides a journaling error recovery mechanism, which keep the file system up and running even after many times of sudden power failures.

SAMSUNG RFS supports only OneNAND flash memory. It fully utilizes the advanced flash technology of OneNAND, together with the state-of-the-art file system design techniques. SAMSUNG RFS delivers superior read/write performance compared to the existing solutions.

SAMSUNG RFS has been fully tested and debugged on Linux Kernel 2.4/2.6 with TI OMAP 2420(ARM 11 core). A kernel configuration option is provided that enables you to distribute RFS as a loadable kernel module without leaving the Linux native kernel build environment.

[M91-30]

ext 4 is superior. in every way. the voodoo kernel lets you convert the phone to ext4, just not sure about the sd card.