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The most useful tweak you can perform is the way that directory indexes are scanned when looking for files. This is controlled by the option “dir_index”. By default this wouldn't be enabled but you can add it by running:

mine:~# tune2fs -O dir_index /dev/sda1

Once you've done this you'll be able to see the updated filesystem flags which are in use:

mine:~# tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep features
Filesystem features:      has_journal resize_inode dir_index filetype needs_recovery sparse_super large_file

An entry in the fstab file usually looks something like this:

/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime 0       1