Not understanding hardlinking

[Matchboxx]

Sonarr version (exact version): 2.0.0.5322
Mono version (if Sonarr is not running on Windows): mono --version does not return anything, but Sonarr is dockerized on my system
OS: CentOS 7
Description of issue: Want to safely remove things from transmission without disrupting my library.

Long story short, Sonarr moves my stuff from /media/downloads/complete to /media/plex/tv/Show Name/Season X.

When I no longer want to seed the show, can I delete the files from /media/downloads/complete without erasing what is in the /media/plex/tv directory? I’m not sure how hardlinking compares to symlinks and don’t want to erase the /media/downloads/complete copy if that’s truly where the content is stored, and /media/plex/tv is just “pointing” to it.

What’s the safest way to clean out my /media/downloads/complete?

[markus101]

Hardlinks are independent from one another, there are two pointers on disk that access the same data you can delete either pointer and the file will still exist on the other side, it’s only when you delete both pointers that the space used by the file is freed up for use and effectively deleted.

Just delete files. Sonarr doesn’t do symlinking so everything is either a copy using 2x the disk space or a hardlink that can be safely deleted.