[SATLUG] EXT3 inner workings and stuff

[Samuel Leon]

Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> Samuel Leon wrote:
> 
>> Does the "ind/dind/tind" stand for indirect, double indirect, and triple
>> indirect?  
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> And what exactly does this mean?  Also is there any way to
>> determine the over all fragmentation level of an ext3 partition?  From
>> what I have read "non-continuous" is not necessarily fragmentation.
> 
> Its explained fairly well at a conceptual level in Wikipedia.
> 
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode
> 
>   -- Bruce


  Yea I have read that.  What I am curious about is exactly what an 
indirect inode is.  From that I have read an inode has a set size limit 
and as a file fragments and the inode has to keep track of all the 
blocks that a file is located at it can run out of space and then that 
is when it creates an indirect inode to continue tracking the file.  Is 
this correct?  What doesn't make since is that according to the fsck 
stats that I  posted, I have 4417 non-contiguous inodes and over 10,000 
indirect inodes.  So indirect can't just mean fragmented.  If it did 
then wouldn't non-contiguous inodes always be higher than the indirect 
inodes or at least equal the same amount?  What is the definition of 
"non-contiguous" anyway, non-shared or broken up?

Sam