Slack File and Orphan File

What is File Slack?

For example, if the cluster size is 4KB and the file size is 5KB then to save the file it will require 2 cluster i.e. 8KB. Now, the File Slack will be (8-5)=3KB.

Hence, File Slack is the difference between the physical file size and the logical file size.

In above example, the physical file size is 8KB i.e. the size given to the file on the hard drive and the logical file size is 5KB i.e. the actual size of the file.

The physical file size is size on disk in file properties and the logical file size is size of the file in the file properties.

What is Orphan file?

For example, when application is uninstall or removed, some files related to that application (either needed for the application or were generated by the application) may remain on the hard disk. These are orphan files since they serve no purpose without the application.

In general, orphan files can be deleted, but should make sure that they truly are orphans because some files, especially DLLs, may be used by more than one application.

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