Compressed Hard Drive

[Roy]

I am helping a relative with her business PC. The PC was purchased from
and installed by a commercial company that also setup the software
installed. I have found that the hard drive is set to compress files to
save hard drive space. The drive is 30gb in zize and half used in its
present state. I have never favored compressing files on a hard drive
and feel the compression should be reversed to not having the drive
compressed.

Am I wrong in feeling the PC would operate faster not having to go
through the compression/decompression functions when files are being
read from the hard drive? Are there any other drawbacks to file
compression?

If I set the drive to not compress the files, are they all subsequently
decompressed immediately or simply not compressed the next time they are
written? What about the application files which are compressed and read
but not written again? Are only certain classes of files compressed, or
all of them? How would I go about decompressing all of the files on the
drive?

 

[Ted Zieglar]

You are absolutely correct to think that compressing a hard disk is a bad
idea. The extra overhead involved in uncompressing a recompressing files is
a sure performance killer. To quote from Windows' Help and Support Center:

"You may notice a decrease in performance when working with NTFS-compressed
files. When you open a compressed file, Windows automatically decompresses
it for you, and when you close the file, Windows compresses it again. This
process may decrease your computer’s performance."

A drive is either compressed (by checking off 'Compress drive to save disk
space') or it's not.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Ted

This can only be true if you need to open and close files. There are many
Windows system files, which are never accessed!

You can compress files without using the option you mention in your
final paragraph. There is no need for global compression. Some file types
compress better than others.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Roy]

But how can I reverse this. If I uncheck the Compress Drive option in
the drive properties this should take care of any new or rewritten
files, but how do I get all of the other application related files, EXE,
DLL, etc. uncompresses short of reinstalling them?

I'm really hacked at the people who set up her PCs for setting the
Compress Disk option on. There is no hard drive space related need for
any file or disk compression at all. Just a standard Norton full virus
scan takes forever on the half full 30gb drive.

Roy

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Roy

In Windows Explorer right click on the drive and select Properties.
Uncheck the box before "Compress the drive to save disk space".

I am not certain whether this will uncompress files but it should
prevent new files being compressed.

Do not forget that running a system with 50% free space will be quicker
than one with 15%. How long it takes to run a Norton Anti-Virus scan
is not necessarily a good measure of system performance! After all
it's not something you do when you need to use your computer!

Are there performance problems when using the computer? What
are they?

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~