I get this question a lot. And generally speaking the answer is a resounding “no”. I have gone nearly twelve years using Linux without defragging a drive and I’ve never noticed a slowdown on a system. But just because you don’t need to doesn’t mean you can’t. I have found it possible to actually check the fragmentation of a linux mount point and defragment that mount point.

In this article I will discuss this very issue and then I will show you how you can test the fragmentation of a mount point on your Linux drive and then defragment that mount point.