There is an option within windows that allows you to compress the data stored on the hard drive to regain some space. I still have 75% of the drive available but i was wondering what are the bennefits and what are the drawbacks of such an action with regards to access times, game frame rates etc?
2006-12-12 09:06:45 · 10 answers · asked by ts950sdx01 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
Hello,
YES! you can compress a drive using the feature in windows but I would only recommend it as a last resort to be honest with you.
Why? because no.1) if you have alot of data, programs, mp3 files, images etc it can take quite a long time to compress the whole drive down. 2) if you compress the drive, it slows down the access rates i.e reading from the drive and writing data back to the drive. So you basically incurr and overhead or a delay, it might not be alot but it definately happens. It sometimes feels like the your system is having to do twice the work it had to before, just inorder to access the same drive.
**Personally I dont like & have never like the idea of compressed drives, its NOT a very eligant solution to the problem of limited space.
**Rather than compress the drive, I think a much better option is to a) delete any programs you can live without or hardly ever use. b) Move any data onto either CD-R or CD-RW disks or DVD's if your using a DVD drive. This free's up alot of space on the HDD.
**The advantage of moving data & programs onto CD/DVD is that you are not forcing your machine to do an extra task, that it would rather not be having to do. The advantage is your system can remain more responsive as its not going to have to perform extra instruction i.e. CPU overhead.
**Or final thought is why not buy an extra external hard disk drive, the prices have come down a great deal in the last 12months and store capacities are now very impressive. Starting at around 80GB's for around £70-80. Many external drives are USB attached so plugin & in a few seconds away you go.
IR
2006-12-12 09:24:03 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
With a compressed hard drive, all the data is compressed as it's written to the disk, and decompressed when it's read from the disk. Windows does this automagically for you.
The idea is that with a compressed disk, you can store more data.
However, you will find that most media, audio and video especially, are already compressed and further compression is unlikely to have any significant effect. Media takes up the majority of my file space, I don't know about yours.
Also, as mentioned in previous answers, there's extra load on the CPU to compress/decompress all this data on the fly, so file access will be slower.
Given the cost of hard drive space nowadays, there seems little point in compressing hard drives. Especially when it has little to no effect on what is generally the most common sort of data.
2006-12-12 09:18:37 · answer #2 · answered by spoonmeiser 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Benefits: Less disk space taken up. Useful for those with smaller hard-drives or people who are using up almost all of their drive space and don't have the money to buy another hard-drive.
Draw-back: Slower access times for files you do not often use. Yes, framerates may be slowed depending on what files have been compressed. If you use the game alot, the files will not automatically be compressed so normally you dont have to worry about it.
I recommend using this feature. It normally doesn't give you trouble.
2006-12-12 09:12:34 · answer #3 · answered by System 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
If you have 75% of your harddrive free you dont need to compress. Its a good thing to compress if you delete a lot of files also like defragmenting your pc. Most people dont even dont do this but when you delete a lot of files it leaves gapes in your hard drive. then thats where it self compress's when you defrag only!
2006-12-12 09:12:19 · answer #4 · answered by out dated prod! 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The benefit is that you free up disk space so you can store more files....
The downsite is that when you want to access a compressed file, it will take more time since the computer needs to uncompress each file you access...
Hope this helps...
2006-12-12 09:09:01 · answer #5 · answered by JohnS 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Compressing does tend to slow things down,some files need to be uncompressed before they can run.
Not so good for gaming,better to buy a bigger 2nd drive or an external storage device,they are quite cheap.
Try Dabs.com,i have found them to be a good company and no i do not work for them.
2006-12-12 09:18:16 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes, but not the windows directory, since that is needed all the time and compressing it makes things slower.
2006-12-12 09:08:24 · answer #7 · answered by Older&Wiser 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Hey there,
In my opinion Ccleaner is the number one tool for cleaning your pc. I've been using it for more then a year now and it works very well. You can grab your free copy here http://bit.ly/UrAox6
Very useful program!
2014-07-27 06:21:07 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
compressing HD is very bad..because every time you'll need to use something it will have to decompress it..i tried it long time on windows 98 when HD's were small..and speed performance dropped by 50%..so it's up to you..
2006-12-12 09:12:57 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It just moves the files in different places making it easy for the CPU to read and making it more free and fast
2006-12-12 09:16:11 · answer #10 · answered by Jay 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋