A distributed storage network (DSN) employs one or more distributed storage task execution (DST EX) units for dispersed storage of encoded data slices. A delete-slice request associated with a first encoded data slice is received at a DST EX unit, the encoded data slice is packed into a common file with other encoded data slices, and the common file is stored in a distributed storage (DS) memory included in the DST EX unit. Each encoded data slice packed into the common file is associated with a file offset within the common file. The DST EX unit identifies a file offset of the first encoded data slice within the common file. The DST EX unit releases the portion of the DS memory associated with the particular file offset within the common file to a file system maintained by the DST EX unit.