Why are some file operations so slow ?

[Linuxguy123]

Some file operations seem extremely slow on my computer.  Its a laptop
with 2 hard drives, a T8400 processor and 4 GB of RAM.

$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.31.6-166.fc12.i686.PAE #1 SMP Wed Dec 9
11:00:30 EST 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ rpm -q kdelibs
kdelibs-4.3.3-4.fc12.i686

Certain file operations seem to take a long time.  Right Click->Delete
in Dolphin, for example.   Or creating a new directory to save a file in
from within Fireofox when doing a Save As.

Why is this ?

Thanks