Defrag can consume free space on disks.

mdgm wrote:
BaJohn wrote: I believe that a manual is being produced for the new OS. That may help with some of these questions. Do we have a projected release date? There is already a new software manual available. See http://support.netgear.com/product/ReadyNAS-OS6

I have already perused the new software manual many times.
Sorry - It was a bad choice of words on my part.

I was under the impression that a new 'Technical manual' is being produced for the new OS, that would help explain the way that Defrag and other such complicated processes work.
i.e. instead of dragging out the fine technical details piecemeal via the forum and multiple posts, we would have in one place a definitive source. Apologies if I have totally misread something somewhere.
Yes I know that with each new facility, it would require revisiting etc.
Perhaps we need a separate post/document/pdf on each technical process (Defrag, Disk Test, disk formatting, snapshots, etc), that could ONLY be updated by an expert.
It would have integrity, be the definitive source for that process, be updated when it was identified that some information was missing and be continually used.
It would also stop some of the continual round and round discussions about how things work.
I would suggest a special forum/post for the "How it works" questions, then put up a topic such as defragging, put a peg in the ground with a starting document (gather together all information to date) and when it is discovered that some information is missing an expert adds it to the document. If ALL questions on the subject are directed to the one place then this would over a period of time become a better and better document. The down side is that an expert would need to update the information regularly, but the upside is they would spend less time answering the same questions, or discussing the same ideas over and over and over again.
Please feel free to shoot me down or whatever.
(If you are already doing this, then sorry, it is not clear to me as a newcomer that it is being done.)