This wasn't a bad idea when hard drives were small and expensive, but it's not such a good idea now. The files that benefit most from compression are things like Microsoft Office files, and these are already compressed as standard when saved in the new Office and OpenOffice file formats. The files that take up most room -- sound, image and video files with extensions such as jpg, mp3 and avi -- are already compressed.
Trying to compress them further takes a long time and they can end up larger than they were before. If you're really short of disk space, it's better to back up some large files to CD or DVD then delete them. My friend did this in Vista. I tried taking the hard drive out and plugging into my pc with a disk caddy, but still no joy. Happens so frequently that Dell have a thread on their help forums solely for this problem! Are Windows compressed files readable through other operating systems.
For example, if my computer breaks and I remove the hard drive, will the files be readable connected to my linux computer? Or say a Compressed file is saved in Dropbox, will I be able to open it using an appropriate Linux or Android App for that file type?
Dropbox works fine, however. Compression happens at the low-level disk so applications are completely unaware of it. Thanks for the info, reading this article allowed me to make an informed decision. In terms of deciding to compress or not compress files this article just got to the point which is what I wanted. I got back about MB of hard drive space. Better than nothing. I tried to compress a few video files so I could email them to my sis, first with Winzip then with Windows 7 and it barely made any difference, but at least now I know why.
Forgot to mention they compressed from 7. If you include a DropBox link in an email, simply clicking on that link should automatically download them to her computer in most cases.
All of the x-files are already compressed. It takes additional use of the CPU to convert the file into compressed format in order to save space on a HD that is running out of space. File and disk compression are is very risky features. The smallest single bit error can destroy a file beyond any possible recovery. Hi, I have a unique scenario, something that most of us will face at some point of time. So I have kinda partial access to it, very slow access, system freezes up when I try to get data.
I was thinking of copying all files to 3 GB which should take forever and then using a compressed 1 GB volume to backup all valuable data so it may save upto GB of data as most of files should achieve good compression. Another feature I read was that it does not compress already compressed files. Should I take up another option? Let me know if NTFS compressed disc is a good option.. As I recall some file types are already compressed and therefore do not benefit from further compression by windows.
I think. MS Office files. I have OCD, so I go around compressing things. Best files for compression are actually executables. Other files such as documentations that comes with programs in adobe or window docs are great too. So sometimes I compress a whole program folder, other times selective folders, and even at times specific files in a program. Overall even the little ones add up. A bit late for comment perhaps but I compressed my Win7 32 C: drive and find it excellent, gaining 17Gb.
It seems faster in many things too. Very nice explanation! NTFS compression will never ever make a file to take more space since on that case it stores that file on uncompressed mode. NTFS compression never ever compress folders, only put on their attributes a mark to compress by default all new things inside it. NTFS compression works in a very bad way, it causes a lot of fragmentation by how it has been implemented. When a new file is written in NTFS compressed mode: It waits for a full chunk of 64KiB, the compress it, and it writes the compressed data on a 64KiB multiply position, no matter how much it has been compressed… that makes a lot of holes in middle of the file and file be in a lot of fragments.
Some people say that they also has verified that the file is first written on uncompressed mode, then compressed and re-writed i have no hardware to do such tests … i think that was on old NTFS versions, since i do a test write it uncompressed and take the time it took, delete it, write it compressed and took the time, last one is lower than first one, so the afirmation it first writes uncompressed and then re-writes must be wrong, at least on NTFS version 5.
But i had done the test to write it on an empty NTFS in uncompressed mode… just only one chunk no fragmentation … delete it also another test with re-format and write it on compressed mode… a lot of chunks, each at a 64KiB multiply position… in other words… first byte of each 64KiB chunk is placed where it would be if not compressed. So i recomend to defrag each file just after it is written if NTFS compression is on … that way all such holes will be used and file may get as contiguos as possible… well, to be true, the fle will go to a different partition place.
See why: accessing metadata of where file is stored is much more time consuming if file is in a million of fragments that just only one, also metadata takes more space on highly fragmented files than unfragmented ones. Ah, yes, NTFS compression is only available for 4KiB cluster NTFS partitions… so it knows how to increment write pointer the actual number of used 4KiB clusters but not, it does not use such counter, it uses the source counter for destiny counter, so it leave gaps between 64KiB chunks if they can gain at least 4KiB when compressed.
One thing the article mentions is that already compressed file would only compress a little and possibly even get larger. My solution is to keep most of my pictures, music, and video files on an external drive. Windows automatically compressed some of my video files due to low disk space.
I worry that quality has been affected. Does Uncompressing restore any losses in file quality, if any is even lost?
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Kontaktaufnahme: markus interworks. Work People Community Blog Events. Note: we are NOT deleting the actual key, just the value assigned to the key! The Latest. More About the Author. Chris Guest Software Engineer. Although I never use it, it always Subscribe to our newsletter. NTFS compression is also very flexible in terms of its scope — it can be applied to a single file, one or more folders, or an entire disk drive NTFS volume. Not sure what type of file system you have?
Just right-click a drive in Windows Explorer and select Properties from the resulting pop-up menu. The file system type will be displayed in the General tab of the Properties window. Some file types compress better than others. NTFS compression is well-suited to a range of file types, including:.
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