linux-kernel - Re: ext3/ext4 directories don't shrink after deleting lots of files

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Date:	Thu, 14 May 2009 20:32:43 -0400
From:	Josef Bacik <josef@...icpanda.com>
To:	Timo Sirainen <tss@....fi>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: ext3/ext4 directories don't shrink after deleting lots of files

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:02 PM, Timo Sirainen <tss@....fi> wrote:
> I've noticed that if you create e.g. 100k files to a directory and then
> delete the files, the directory entry still seems to take a couple of
> megabytes. Later whenever accessing the (almost empty) directory it can
> take a few seconds to load it into cache.
>
> Is there a way to shrink the directory somehow without having to rmdir()
> it? Would be nice if kernel did it automatically, but I could live with
> a manual userspace syscall/tool as well.
>

fsck -D <device>, when its unmounted of course.

Josef
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