xp slow dos compress pkzip

May 14, 2008

Hi Folks:

Not a question here, just observations. We have an IBM running as

a station monitor that runs software that saves log files; about 86

megs a day. It ran out of hard drive the other day. About time I

guess.. I tried sending these to compress. Well, fist I could only

do 1 file, because there was very limited hard drive. But, after 1,

then 2, then 4, etc., and deleting the original files, I could

'compress' about a month's worth of files in a clip. I couldn't

'compress' 2 months, no matter how much free hard drive I had. Using

'compress' I could only do a month at a time. It took about 16 seconds

a file (86 megs) and compressed very tight! A whole month compressed

to about 60 megs! I noticed there is about 2 years of these files to

compress.. That's a LONG time to compress!

I just found PKZIP on a boot chip! Using the CMD window, our good

'ol virtual DOS window, I can 'pkzip' the all these files at once -

over two years worth, and it takes 6 seconds a file. Over twice as

fast in a 'virtual DOS box' it's causing FAR less drive activity, and

I can still use the computer! In fact, I'm deleting the originals

after PKZIP 'zips' them. Why is this?

Harry

May 14, 2008

Re: xp slow dos compress pkzip

HarryHydro wrote:

> Hi Folks:

> Not a question here, just observations. We have an IBM running as

> a station monitor that runs software that saves log files; about 86

> megs a day. It ran out of hard drive the other day. About time I

> guess.. I tried sending these to compress. Well, fist I could only

> do 1 file, because there was very limited hard drive. But, after 1,

> then 2, then 4, etc., and deleting the original files, I could

> 'compress' about a month's worth of files in a clip. I couldn't

> 'compress' 2 months, no matter how much free hard drive I had. Using

> 'compress' I could only do a month at a time. It took about 16 seconds

> a file (86 megs) and compressed very tight! A whole month compressed

> to about 60 megs! I noticed there is about 2 years of these files to

> compress.. That's a LONG time to compress!

> I just found PKZIP on a boot chip! Using the CMD window, our good

> 'ol virtual DOS window, I can 'pkzip' the all these files at once -

> over two years worth, and it takes 6 seconds a file. Over twice as

> fast in a 'virtual DOS box' it's causing FAR less drive activity, and

> I can still use the computer! In fact, I'm deleting the originals

> after PKZIP 'zips' them. Why is this?

> Harry

I'm a bit fuzzy on your explanation, but if you are comparing the free

zip feature in XP to a full production version like PKZIP then I can

easily understand the diff. Also you are comparing a GUI program to a

DOS program. There is always less overhead in a DOS program.

Another thought is to use some backup utility. Normally backup programs

do two things, 1) it will compress the data as it goes, 2) it will span

drives so if you put the backups on DVD's it will let you spread the

backup over quite a few dvd's go get the job done. You just need the

backup to restore and have to remember to keep it for future needs.

And its not as readily viewable like a zip file is.

May 14, 2008