Do People Here Compress Their Hardrives?

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teknoT42 · #1 Post by **teknoT42** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:25 am

Hello,
I've compressed my hardrive to save disk space..
how about yourself?
is this bad for the system?

hiengu · #2 Post by **hiengu** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:06 am

I think it would affect your system performance. ie. hard disk

lfeagan · #3 Post by **lfeagan** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:22 am

This is not the era of 10MB hard drives....stop compressing your hard drive as it will only create a lot of headaches.

Kenn · #4 Post by **Kenn** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:00 am

I compress my archive directory (backups, program installers, unused files). Other than that, access speed is more important than free disk space.

none · #5 Post by **none** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 8:43 am

If you want to compress things to save space, use a program like WinZip, or better yet WinRAR.. But don't use disk compresstion, it was made for tiny hard drives in the Windows 95 era (and didn't even work so well then)... We got 40-80GB hard drives today, I'd avoid it if I were you..

egibbs · #6 Post by **egibbs** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:06 am

However - with a fast processor and a slow disk compression may actually improve performance. That's because you transfer less data back and forth to the disk. But the effect will be marginal except for very large files that compress well.

Ed Gibbs

dpb · #7 Post by **dpb** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 11:02 am

Have you ever had a file become corrupted and unusable? Why turn your whole hard disk into a single file?

The problem with using hard disk compression is that it's completely brittle. The smallest problem will wipe out you entire hard drive. There's no resilience and no recovery. I've been there and done that and have the scars to prove it. Stay far, far away.

monty cantsin · #8 Post by **monty cantsin** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:52 pm

dpb wrote:Have you ever had a file become corrupted and unusable? Why turn your whole hard disk into a single file?

No, I guess we're talking about the file compression that's built into the NTFS file system from Windows NT 4 onwards. This is a native feature of the file system and is completely transparent. It does no longer work the way you imagine, as it was with the old Stacker-type of online compression tools, DoubleSpace and so on. These tools really wrote all data into a single file and mounted it as a virtual hard drive. But NTFS does indeed store individual files.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu ... l_oexm.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... ession.asp

http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/9410/ ... icle10.htm

dpb wrote:The problem with using hard disk compression is that it's completely brittle. The smallest problem will wipe out you entire hard drive.

No, not true, because only individual files are affected. In general, compressed files on NTFS volumes aren't really significantly more susceptible to errors than uncompressed ones (for the exception of a worst-case scenario, see below).

dpb wrote:There's no resilience and no recovery. I've been there and done that and have the scars to prove it.

That's correct. If, for instance, the partition tables get corrupted, no recovery software is able to restore compressed files yet.

http://www.sandersonforensics.co.uk/ntf ... ession.htm

dpb wrote:Stay far, far away.

I wouldn't use this kind of compression on whole drives or my personal data, either (for security reasons -- I had corrupted partition tables on my drives several times already, and with the use of advanced software like OnTrack EasyRecovery, I have always been able to get back my valuable personal files up to now). But I also have some really big literature databases that need no permanent backups (the works of Goethe and Lord Byron won't really change, so the set of copies I have stored elsewhere will suffice), and as text files can be compressed very well, I can put much more data on my drives this way.

whizkid · #9 Post by **whizkid** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 5:21 pm

Windows 2000 and XP (IIRC) put the replaced files from Windows Update in a compressed directory.

I like to make my e-books directory compressed, and other archive locations. Modern media like MP3, JPG and DVD don't compress well, but text, archived e-mail, e-books should.

Heck, if I had a server that replicated My Documents, I'd compress that.

But yeah, having a single file store your file system could be risky. Compression software is just that: Software. Like any software, it can have bugs, both in accuracy and in performance.

awolfe63 · #10 Post by **awolfe63** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 10:42 pm

Why?

Unless you have very unusual usage patterns - the only way to fill up a 40-80GB hard drive is with music, video, pictures, or games. These are generally already compressed - so disk compression doesn't help.

dpb · #11 Post by **dpb** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:14 am

All of the clarifications, particularly Monte Cantsin's, are appreciated by this dated codger. But it's still apparently true that a general compression scheme over an entire volume is rarely, if ever, worth the risk. The compression should be left up to the individual applications.

aleung · #12 Post by **aleung** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:34 pm

i think compress the drive will use more cpu time and drill the battery faster ?

Do People Here Compress Their Hardrives?

Do People Here Compress Their Hardrives?

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