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I'd like to defrag an external hard disk; it's formatted as NTFS for compatibility with windows when friends need files off of it. However, I use only ubuntu.

I've tried

  • running defraggler under wine
  • Defragging from a windows xp guest under virtual box.

The drive definitely needs it and I don't have access to a windows computer from which to defrag. Ideas?

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What issues did you run into defragging from virtualbox? – John T Jan 2 '11 at 7:02
Neither defraggler nor windows defrag will recognise it as a drive or folder that can be defragged. The drive is mounted as a share through virtualbox guest additions. Virtual box (3.2.8-dfsg-2ubuntu1) doesn't seem to have a "USB" option panel like I've seen in screenshots of others. – EricR Jan 2 '11 at 9:26
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Defrag works with VirtualBox as long as you use the closed-source, non-GPL version that has USB passthrough. The closed source version is free (as in free beer) for personal and educational usage.

You cannot defrag a via the "shared folder" feature because one can't do filesystem-level operations (like defrag) on a samba network share.

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