I have a basic understanding of how Cassandra handles the file system (flushes in Memtables out to SSTables, SSTables get compacted) and I understand that old files are only deleted when a node is restarted, when Java does a GC, or when Cassandra feels like it is running out of space.
My question is, is there some way for us to hurry the process along? We have a data that we do a lot of inserts into and then delete the data several hours later. We would like it if we could free up disk space (since our disks, though large, are shared with other applications). So far, the action sequence to accomplish this is: nodetoo flush -> nodetool repair -> nodetool compact -> ?? Is there a way for me to make (or even gently suggest to) Cassandra that it may be a good time to free up some space?
