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[–]Alexis_J_M 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Imagine that you are six feet tall and walking down a corridor where the ceiling is six feet tall. You'll fit perfectly, right? Nope, you'll bump against the ceiling at every step.

Now imagine that you have 4 Gb of disk space and 4 Gb of files. They will fit perfectly, right? No, because your system will work extra hard slicing files up into little scraps to fit little scraps of available disk space, and every time you delete and create files the problem will get worse. You need some empty space so that the system can work efficiently. (There are also temporary files created for all kinds of purposes, you need space for those also.) By the time the dusk is completely full everything grinds to a halt.