Rebuild Large Directories

Large directory trees, especially those more than three levels deep can slow down file access times.  A good example of this would be a Web Hosting Server with many web sites.  As time goes on those sites will be updated and those files will be spread across the entire disk or disk array.  Defragmenting doesn't solve the problem completely; you need to rebuild the trees from scratch. There are a few paths you can take depending on what your situation is.  If you only have 1 hard drive you should defrag first then copy the directory tree to a new directory (which puts the whole directory structure together in one block), delete the original, rename the copy to match the original and then defrag again.  If you have access to another hard drive or you are on a network you can copy the directory over to another disk and delete your local copy then defrag and copy it back.  Many times this is not an option but if you can I hope it helps.