Guest JCB Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 In Disk Properties, if Compress Drive is selected, is actual disk space conserved, or only apparent space? Also, is there an overhead burden associated with having a drive compressed in terms of slower reads/writes? Thanks, -- JCB\1059
Guest Detlev Dreyer Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 Re: Compressed Drive "JCB" <JCB@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > In Disk Properties, if Compress Drive is selected, is actual disk space > conserved, or only apparent space? Also, is there an overhead burden > associated with having a drive compressed in terms of slower reads/writes? Applies to WinXP as well: "Best practices for NTFS compression in Windows" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251186/en-us -- d-d
Guest Vanguard Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 Re: Compressed Drive "JCB" wrote in message news:31F97732-6D2A-4957-B269-D5B5F21309BB@microsoft.com... > In Disk Properties, if Compress Drive is selected, is actual disk > space > conserved, or only apparent space? Also, is there an overhead burden > associated with having a drive compressed in terms of slower > reads/writes? Compression ALWAYS incurs overhead. Why? Because CPU cycles are expended to decompress the file for an application to actually use the contents of that file and compression is required to save any changes back into the compressed file/volume. If the bulk of the files to be compressed are binary or image files, compression won't do much to reduce their size and can actually increase their size. Those types of files are already compressed (or very little compressible). Sounds like it is time to start looking at getting another drive or replacing with a bigger one. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987/en-us As I recall, you cannot use volume (drive) compression on the partition in which Windows is installed (i.e., you cannot compress the OS drive), but you could compress your own folders or files there.
Guest Gerry Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: Compressed Drive The obvious files to compress on the operating system partition / drive are the uninstall Windows Update files. No overhead as in normal circumstances never accessed and significant disk space gain. However, this conversation seems to gloss over the differences between disk compression and file compression. -- Hope this helps. Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vanguard wrote: > "JCB" wrote in message > news:31F97732-6D2A-4957-B269-D5B5F21309BB@microsoft.com... >> In Disk Properties, if Compress Drive is selected, is actual disk >> space >> conserved, or only apparent space? Also, is there an overhead burden >> associated with having a drive compressed in terms of slower >> reads/writes? > > > Compression ALWAYS incurs overhead. Why? Because CPU cycles are > expended to decompress the file for an application to actually use the > contents of that file and compression is required to save any changes > back into the compressed file/volume. > > If the bulk of the files to be compressed are binary or image files, > compression won't do much to reduce their size and can actually > increase their size. Those types of files are already compressed (or > very little compressible). > > Sounds like it is time to start looking at getting another drive or > replacing with a bigger one. > > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987/en-us > > As I recall, you cannot use volume (drive) compression on the > partition in which Windows is installed (i.e., you cannot compress > the OS drive), but you could compress your own folders or files there.
Guest Vanguard Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 Re: Compressed Drive "Gerry" wrote in message news:eVjjmRrxHHA.1568@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > The obvious files to compress on the operating system partition / > drive are the uninstall Windows Update files. No overhead as in normal > circumstances never accessed and significant disk space gain. However, > this conversation seems to gloss over the differences between disk > compression and file compression. If you are not going to uninstall the Windows updates, you can delete those $NtUinstallKB* folders. I checked and there 110 such folders for Windows updates on my host that consume 534MB. When saved into a .zip file using max compression, the ..zip file was 226MB in size. Yes, that returned 308MB on the hard drive; however, you could just move the $NtUninstallKB* files to a CD-R without even having to compress them. It is likely that 308MB isn't much of a saving depending on the size of your hard drive.
Guest Gerry Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 Re: Compressed Drive It's a contribution amongst others when you have limited free space and you don't wish to delete. I have to admit I have never felt the need ever to uninstall an update. -- Regards. Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vanguard wrote: > "Gerry" wrote in message news:eVjjmRrxHHA.1568@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... >> The obvious files to compress on the operating system partition / >> drive are the uninstall Windows Update files. No overhead as in >> normal circumstances never accessed and significant disk space gain. >> However, this conversation seems to gloss over the differences >> between disk compression and file compression. > > > If you are not going to uninstall the Windows updates, you can delete > those $NtUinstallKB* folders. > > I checked and there 110 such folders for Windows updates on my host > that consume 534MB. When saved into a .zip file using max > compression, the .zip file was 226MB in size. Yes, that returned > 308MB on the hard drive; however, you could just move the > $NtUninstallKB* files to a CD-R without even having to compress them. > It is likely that 308MB isn't much of a saving depending on the size > of your hard drive.
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