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Theducks pretty much covered it: "sci-fi" is a pejorative term for science fiction, and many longtime readers/fans find it highly insulting. That's particularly true in the context it was used by the OP, as an example of "trash" books that some non-serious reader, some lesser being, might read once and throw away.
Trying to sort out SF from fantasy can be a strain. Okay, on one end of the spectrum you have hard SF, and on the other end you have pure fantasy, but it's the cases in the middle that keep the aspirin manufacturers in business. The rule of thumb "if it has spaceships, it's SF; if it has dragons, it's fantasy" breaks down and cries when it meets genetically-engineered dragons or magically-powered spaceships. There is fantasy that is as "hard" in the sense of developing a world consistent with a given set of conditions as the hardest SF, and SF where you just need to rename the spaceships to dragons and you wouldn't notice much of a difference. And what do you do with something like Wen Spencer's "Tinker"? (which looked to be the start of a great series before the main character went all Mary Sue) My personal rule of thumb for the intermediate cases is to consider the continuity with the present. If the world is supposedly the future or past of the real world, that loads some weight on the SF end of the scale; if it's in a world of its own, without placement in real-world chronology, that pushes down on the fantasy end. That's usually enough to make the difference. It's not perfect, but it helps. I have a calibre tag of "pulp SF" to cover the ray-gun fantasies of ERB, etc., which have the usual SF trappings but are so soft they need to be wrapped up like pasteurized processed cheese food product in order to be handled.
Regarding the drive space issue: Theducks is right about DVD, though an external HD would be another good option. They're cheaper than chemistry textbooks now. In either case, if you moved your originals to the DVD or external HD when importing them into calibre, they could then be stored safely somewhere to serve as a backup. Offsite backups are a Good Thing.
That would make it easy for you to do the work in stages, too. Import one folder of books into calibre, bulk-edit them to tag them by source folder, move the now-redundant folder to the backup medium. Repeat until all the books are imported/moved. Then you can go back through and edit again to catch the books that require tags beyond those defined by their original place in your directory structure, such as the ones mentioned that cover several different topics. Then you'll be able to find that one chapter on intermetallic states that's part of a book which is mostly about some other topic.
As to your first post, darknessangel, you got some solid answers despite the tone of that post, rather than because of it. This is a very important distinction.
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