And additionnaly, isn’t there a way to exploit this so we can store more stuff on PCs?

Edit: can’t thank you all individually but thanks to everyone, I learnt something today, appreciate all of your replies!

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    130·
    2 months ago

    Because you’re operating system is lying to you, for efficiency sake.

    Imagine an old school library, books on the shelves, and a Dewey decimal card catalog index in the center.

    You want to delete a book, to make room for future books, so you tell the librarian delete this book. And she removes the card from the card catalog index, and turns to you and says the book is gone!

    In this scenario the book is still on the shelf, but the index no longer points to it.

    Clearly the book isn’t gone, but from your perspective you don’t have to wait for the book to disappear, and the librarian knows eventually she’s going to clean the shelf, and remove whatever isn’t in the index.

    That’s more or less, with a lot of hand wave in, what operating systems do for file systems.