They are taking considerable space. Can I remove them after an update without any ill effects?
As long as you are sure that you don't want to add any other MDs that will need those updates, it ok to delete them, but only the *.tar files, if you delete everything they will get downloaded again :).
Thanks asgard. Guess I found that out kinda the hard way since I deleted the 1, 2, 3, and 4 directories in /home/updates and they got downloaded again and I got prompted in an orbiter whether I want to install the update again. I took a look at the script that monitors new updates and I thought it was safe to remove everything but /home/updates/updates.xml*. Guess I missed something.