Feature request: calculate free space a different way

OK, not sure how much demand there will be for this feature but I thought I'd throw it out there. I've mentioned my setup before but here it is again so there's a context for my suggestion.

I have a MacBook, and Airport Extreme, and an XBOX. The Airport Extreme has a 500gb external drive attached to it via USB. My MacBook accesses the drive via AirDisk which is really just a program that automounts the AFP or SMB device when it becomes available. Anyways, the 500gb shows up as a network drive.

I have a folder that hazel watches and when anything shows up there it picks it up and moves it to a folder on the 500gb drive. Unfortunately neither MacOS or the AirDisk software keeps very good track of free space on networked drives.

The drive is always stuffed to capacity. I use my XBOX to watch a TV show or movie from the 500gb and then delete the files via the XBOX when I'm done. This frees up disk space on the device Finder still shows it as having only a little bit free, so Hazel won't move anything new to it. Of course when I disconnect and reconnect everything starts moving again.

Not even sure if this is something that you can do if you wanted to since you're probably using OS hooks to get the free space anyways. I haven't had a chance to use a 'df' command on the drive to see if a terminal session reports more accurate info. Just thought I'd throw it in the wind and see what comes of it...

Hazel doesn't really care about free space. It attempts the move and if it fails, it fails. Unfortunately, what this means is that there's not much that can be done outside of fixing whatever it is at the lower level which is not properly refreshing.

I don't know how the XBOX works but is it possible that it just puts stuff in the trash or uses some other mechanism where it doesn't delete the files immediately? Just a thought.

Nope, when you delete something with the XBOX it nukes the files altogether.

From your description it sounds like it's a problem with my Airport Extreme or Mac OS itself. I'll open an enhancement request with Apple. Thanks!