very slow deletions on ext3 USB drive

[Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)]

On Fri, September 18, 2009 16:47, Knapp wrote:
>> However if you do an ext3->ext4 upgrade, you don't get all of the
>> benefits
>> from ext4. For example an upgraded ext3->ext4 disk doesn't use extents
>> like a clean formatted ext4 does. You will need to "defrag" the disk
>> with
>> a tool like e4defrag, and that will take just as long (or even longer)
>> as
>> copying from the old disk to a new disk.
>>
>> I suggest that you do some test on a loopback filesystem first, before
>> you
>> hose your backup disk. :)
>>
>> --
>> Amedee
>
> So are you saying that using e4defrag will make and upgraded ext4 disk
> as good as a new one?

Now that you ask me, I'm not entirely sure any more that the name of the
tool is e4defrag. It could be some other tool.
But yes, I am saying that essentially you can run a certain tool that will
make an upgraded disk (almost -> the actual performance difference will be
marginal for practical use) as good as a new one, AND at the same time I'm
saying that it will take more time to run this tool than just copy the
data to another disk, format, and copy the data back.
So it may not even be worth the effort.

-- 
Amedee