Compressing NTFS Drive

[cbcb52]

I am kind of short on space , so I compressed my hard drive
( using NTFS file system ) .
The new space is far beyond my expectations ( comparing with windows
98 , where I could nearly double the space availlable ). I got some
extra MB and that's it.
Is this the way it's supposed to work ??? ( I selected not only the
drive , but also all files on it ) .

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I am kind of short on space , so I compressed my hard drive
( using NTFS file system ) .
The new space is far beyond my expectations ( comparing with windows
98 , where I could nearly double the space availlable ). I got some
extra MB and that's it.
Is this the way it's supposed to work ??? ( I selected not only the
drive , but also all files on it ) .

IMO it isn't worth the hassle or the slowdown .. just buy a second hard
disk (it's about 1$ per GB these days).

 

[Plato]

I am kind of short on space , so I compressed my hard drive
( using NTFS file system ) .
The new space is far beyond my expectations ( comparing with windows
98 , where I could nearly double the space availlable ). I got some
extra MB and that's it.
Is this the way it's supposed to work ??? ( I selected not only the
drive , but also all files on it ) .

Dont use software to fix a hardware problem. You are only in for BIG
trouble down the line.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

If you use the NTFS compression option, it only compresses new files written
to the drive, possibly changed files. But it does not compress existing
files. That's why you didn't see much of a gain.

 

[Alex Nichol]

If you use the NTFS compression option, it only compresses new files written
to the drive, possibly changed files. But it does not compress existing
files. That's why you didn't see much of a gain.

To Add - you do *not* want to compress all files on the System's own
disk anyway, or it will become unbootable because the files needed in
the initial boot are unreadable, the necessary compression software only
getting loaded much later.

But also, only some types of files give much compression anyway - text
and documents usually good, HTM excellent but types like JPG GIF MPG
MP3 WMV RM and so on are all compressed already as far as they will go
- and may even grow a little if you try.