With the current problems I was having, I ran accross some interesting information.
From Wikipedia: "There is no online ext3
defragmentation tool working on the filesystem level. An offline ext2 defragmenter, e2defrag, exists but requires that the ext3 filesystem be converted back to ext2 first. But depending on the feature bits turned on the filesystem, e2defrag may destroy data; it does not know how to treat many of the newer ext3 features.
[7]
There are userspace defragmentation tools like Shake
[8] and defrag
[9]. Shake works by allocating space for the whole file bolt upright and hoping that it will make the newly allocated file less fragmented. It also tries to write files used at the same time next to each others. Defrag works by copying each file over itself.
However they only work if the filesystem is reasonably empty. A true defragmentation tool does not exist for ext3.
[10]
That being said, as the Linux System Administrator Guide states,
"Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system."[11]
Knowing that the EHD uses EXT3 file systems, you may want to consider the following. Deleting files will cause framentation and could be some of the freeze or slow down issues. I did see this prior to reloading the new EHD but NOT seeing it now. Keeping the files contiguous (with no gaps) would be an advantage. While obviously these drives can have problems, I was able to write from front to back with zeros, without a problem, using WD tools. I have since put the cleaned drive back on the EHD. I am an IT professional but not in the LINUX or WINDOWS area.