How much performance loss when compressing Windows (XP) folder?

[Alex Schugman]

Hello,

how much performance loss can one expect when compressing Windows XP
folder? (NTFS). Will it be very slow?

This would be on a Thinkpad R52 with 1,73Ghz Centrino/Pentium M and
512mb Ram.

Reason I want to compress is that I have a 2Gb Flash IDE drive, so
space is rare, but speed is good (good access times = 0.6 sec, average
transfer rate around 20mb/sec).

Thanks in advance.

Alex

 

[Shenan Stanley]

how much performance loss can one expect when compressing Windows XP
folder? (NTFS). Will it be very slow?

This would be on a Thinkpad R52 with 1,73Ghz Centrino/Pentium M and
512mb Ram.

Reason I want to compress is that I have a 2Gb Flash IDE drive, so
space is rare, but speed is good (good access times = 0.6 sec,
average transfer rate around 20mb/sec).

You mean you have a 2GB USB thumb drive - not IDE?
(a 2GB hard disk drive in an external case just sounds bizarre these days -
but if that is what you mean - let me know!)

NTFS compression will happen in the background and in this case - it
probably wouldn't amount to much gain or performance loss. You aren't
compressing system files in this case - but files you are purposely storing
and transporting on the USB thumb drive.

 

[DatabaseBen]

you can always compress, get exact
results that are "a" specific for your
system and requirements. If not happy, you can
uncompress later....

 

[Nina DiBoy]

You mean you have a 2GB USB thumb drive - not IDE?
(a 2GB hard disk drive in an external case just sounds bizarre these days -
but if that is what you mean - let me know!)

NTFS compression will happen in the background and in this case - it
probably wouldn't amount to much gain or performance loss. You aren't
compressing system files in this case - but files you are purposely storing
and transporting on the USB thumb drive.

Hi Alex and Shenan.

It depends on what you are doing with the stuff you want to compress. I
use NTFS compression alot and here are some things I've observed:

- It makes virus scans take much longer with large amounts of data. On
my laptop (Thinkpad X40, 1.6mhz pentium M, 1gb ram) I have 40gb data on
a 60 gb drive, all crompressed using NTFS compression. It takes me over
10 hrs to run a virus scan. on the same type of machine that does not
use compression it takes under 4 hours.

- If possible, don't compress any commonly used system files on your
system partition. If Windows has to keep compressing and decompressing
system files on the fly when it needs to access them, you will see a
performance hit.

- NTFS can conflict with 3rd party apps that also use compression,
specifically apps that have a database to hold their data, which can get
large and will often enploy some type of compression.

Aside from that, I've not run into any other problems. HTH, good luck.

 

[Alex Schugman]

You mean you have a 2GB USB thumb drive - not IDE?
(a 2GB hard disk drive in an external case just sounds bizarre these days -
but if that is what you mean - let me know!)

No, I mean exactly what I wrote:

see http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/ItemDetail.asp?ItemID=TS2GIFD25

NTFS compression will happen in the background and in this case - it
probably wouldn't amount to much gain or performance loss. You aren't
compressing system files in this case - but files you are purposely storing
and transporting on the USB thumb drive.

see above, I want to compress windows directory. I suppose the proof of
the pudding is in the eating it, I'll run a test.

Regards,
Alex

 

[Alex Schugman]

you can always compress, get exact
results that are "a" specific for your
system and requirements. If not happy, you can
uncompress later....

yes, I suppose that's the obvious thing to do to get a usable answer...
- I'll do just that. Reason I asked is that Microsoft talks of
performance loss...

Regards,
Alex

 

[DatabaseBen]

yeh, but due to the
millions of possibilities
resulting from a multitude
of hardware configurations with
a multitude of software, microsoft
provides case scenerios that blanket
all computers worldwide.

However for the tech. savvy, experts and
or highly sophisticated
systems with ever evolving technology,
scenerios like those apply to everyone
else.

 

[Alex Schugman]

Hi Alex and Shenan.

It depends on what you are doing with the stuff you want to compress. I
use NTFS compression alot and here are some things I've observed:

- It makes virus scans take much longer with large amounts of data. On
my laptop (Thinkpad X40, 1.6mhz pentium M, 1gb ram) I have 40gb data on
a 60 gb drive, all crompressed using NTFS compression. It takes me over
10 hrs to run a virus scan. on the same type of machine that does not
use compression it takes under 4 hours.

- If possible, don't compress any commonly used system files on your
system partition. If Windows has to keep compressing and decompressing
system files on the fly when it needs to access them, you will see a
performance hit.

- NTFS can conflict with 3rd party apps that also use compression,
specifically apps that have a database to hold their data, which can get
large and will often enploy some type of compression.

Aside from that, I've not run into any other problems. HTH, good luck.

thanks for the infos. I did a test compressing my windows directory and
noticed that XP took longer to boot. once up and running for a while,
it's doesnt seem much slower.

I decided to decompress it again though, because I can have space for a
pagesys file (and wouldnt want to use it in the flash drive anyway),
i.e. when I shutdown, I have to clean boot. the folder is down to 820
mbytes already anyway, compression only saved another 120 mbytes. I did
compress then programme files folder though.

regards,
Alex

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Alex Schugman wrote:

thanks for the infos. I did a test compressing my windows directory
and noticed that XP took longer to boot. once up and running for a
while, it's doesnt seem much slower.

I decided to decompress it again though, because I can have space
for a pagesys file (and wouldnt want to use it in the flash drive
anyway), i.e. when I shutdown, I have to clean boot. the folder is
down to 820 mbytes already anyway, compression only saved another
120 mbytes. I did compress then programme files folder though.

You'd be better off freeing up as much space as you can by uninstalling
unnecessary accessories through Add/Remove programs control panel and inside
that --> Add/Remove Windows Components.

Also - you may want to turn off system restore, hibernation and shrink your
Temporary Internet Files down to very small and empty them (it's a checkbox)
when you exit IE. Use something like CrapCleaner *and* the built in Disk
Cleanup tool to go through and remove unnecessary temp files and registry
entries. Make sure you have erased the uninstall files for any
hotfixes/patches for Windows XP.

Help with all that:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310405

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest 5% or
higher.
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 128MB and 512MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 128MB and 512MB. (Betting it is MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.

http://www.ccleaner.com/
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312
and
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm

That will free up a ton of space without compromising much.