Defrag Internal Flash?

[jamesannan]

Does anyone know what this message means?

On starting up mail, I get told the internal flash is fragmented, and an offer to defrag ("this may take some time"). It doesn't matter whether I say yes or no, mail starts up ok and the message is repeated next time. I'm also having trouble deleting multiple mail messages, supposedly due to lack of space (which I don't believe).

Is there anything I can do to stop the message? Can I actually defrag the internal flash? It's been (rarely) mentioned here before, but no useful answers supplied. This is on a standard 860.

Thanks,

James

[qx773]

There is no benefit to defragging the internal flash memory that I know.  Access time will not be noticeably faster on a flash drive as it might be on a hard disk after defragging.

You can run out of temporary file space.  The default amount of "/tmp" file space is 1MB of RAM on my C760.  It is defined in the "/etc/fstab" file.  If you have a flash card, then you might be able to specify a directory on your flash card as the mount point for the "/tmp" directory and be limited only by the amount of free space on the flash card.  I have not tried this myself.  It is possible that using the "/tmp" directory on a flash card might interfere with the boot process.

[dhns]

Does anyone know what this message means?

This has nothing to do with fragmentation of the file system on your flash.

It is a message related to the internal "DTM" database used by the Sharp ROM. This database is used to store Contacts, Events, Tasks, Memos and Mails. It can become fragmented in any area so you can receive this message also from Address Book or Calendar.

Simply say "yes" and everhing should be fine again. If not, the database might be corrupt. AFAIK, there is no "repair" tool. So, you can just delete or reinstall from a backup.

-- hns

[Da_Blitz]

Just as a side note qx773 is correct, there is no benifit as the seek time for flash is several magnitudes lower than that of a hard drive (nS|uS vs mS)

[speculatrix]

On starting up mail, I get told the internal flash is fragmented, and an offer to defrag ("this may take some time"). It doesn't matter whether I say yes or no, mail starts up ok and the [div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111539\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

are u sure it's not simply trying to compact your mail folders, which can sort of be viewed as "defragging?"

try adding a swap file to give the Z more 'elbow room' and close all other apps whilst mail is compacting folders?