linux

Deleting files doesn't free disk space

During work to improve BleachBit's method of wiping free disk space, I noticed a relatively obscure way in which deleted files do not fully free the disk space they occupied. The process is basically to create an empty partition, fill it with 2000 files each 4096 bytes each, and then delete the files. If the files are in the root of the partition, then the file system keeps 45 more blocks allocated. If the 2000 files are created in a sub directory that is deleted after the 2000 files are deleted, then all the used blocks are freed.

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