From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from cuda.sgi.com (cuda3.sgi.com [192.48.176.15]) by oss.sgi.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/SuSE Linux 0.8) with ESMTP id n0NFQDpu203348 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:26:13 -0600 Received: from mail.sandeen.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by cuda.sgi.com (Spam Firewall) with ESMTP id 9973518582BA for ; Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:25:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.sandeen.net (sandeen.net [209.173.210.139]) by cuda.sgi.com with ESMTP id 5yJ19uGy3KqYUvDA for ; Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:25:29 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4979E167.2040806@sandeen.net> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:25:27 -0600 From: Eric Sandeen MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Strange fragmentation in nearly empty filesystem References: <20090123102130.GB8012@doctronic.de> In-Reply-To: <20090123102130.GB8012@doctronic.de> List-Id: XFS Filesystem from SGI List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: xfs-bounces@oss.sgi.com Errors-To: xfs-bounces@oss.sgi.com To: Carsten Oberscheid Cc: xfs@oss.sgi.com Carsten Oberscheid wrote: > Hi there, > > I am experiencing my XFS filesystem degrading over time in quite a > strange and annoying way. Googling "XFS fragmenation" tells me either > that this does not happen or to use xfs_fsr, which doesn't really help > me anymore -- see below. I'd appreciate any help on this. > > Background: I am using two VMware virtual machines on my Linux > desktop. These virtual machines store images of their main memory in > .vmem files, which are about half a gigabyte in size for each of my > VMs. The .vmem files are created when starting the VM, written when > suspending it and read when resuming. I prefer suspendig and resuming > over shutting down and booting again, so with my VMs these files can > have a lifetime of several weeks. I would suggest using xfs_bmap to look at the file layout, it will be much more informative than filefrag. I don't know how vmware is writing the files out (I don't use vmware, so can't test) but I'd suggest looking at xfs_bmap output when it's first created, and then also when it's first written (but perhaps before it gets too horribly fragmented). The first question I'd ask is whether it's a swiss-cheese looking sparse file with many holes. -Eric _______________________________________________ xfs mailing list xfs@oss.sgi.com http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs