Wiindows Disk Cleanup : compress old files??????????????????

J

jakescakes

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
359
I use the disk cleanup utility a lot like im sure most ppl do, but I noticed there is a "compress old files" option

checking it will supposedly free up 95Gigs on my (F) drive which is my storage drive that just has movies, mp3s, pix on it.

should I do it, I don't see how it could give me so much space, its only a 320 drive and im almost full.

it seems fishy any harm/benefit
 
If you compress the files, they'll need to be decompressed when you access them. You get more space, but it'll be slower.
 
Actually, it could be faster. Compression means more data can fit into a given area on the drive. So as long as your CPU can keep up (it can) you'll be able to pull data more quickly. The compression algorithm is meant to be incredibly fast to decompress. As long as you aren't doing anything to peg the CPU, it probably won't hurt in the least.
 
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Don't EVER do the file compression bit. I run across this all the time and it just F's ups peoples computers - as in makes them slower.
 
I'm running drive compression without any problems. Got any tests to back your claim up? I wouldn't compress my boot drive, but storage drives are just fine.
 
Ryom said:
I'm running drive compression without any problems. Got any tests to back your claim up? I wouldn't compress my boot drive, but storage drives are just fine.
Click to expand...

Only the cries of idiot users that call me to fix their pc with comments like "it suddenly slowed down, it used to be faster". I look a bit to see if they have the tell-tale blue compressed files. I ask them if they had a message about cleaning up their pc and sure enough.

I do a clean reinstall, put all their crap back on it, windows updates, AV software - and sure enough it still runs much faster (but then clean installs generally do).

But do I have benchmarks? Nope, never bothered. Maybe I will do some next time.
 
I noticed a significant speed increase off of my external drive for highly compressible files, and no hit for files that don't compress well. I have compression enabled on my data folders on my internal storage drive and my documents as well and I certainly haven't noticed any issues. I'd wager that the problem is with the user and not with the compression itself.
 
Maybe it works ok for secondary drives or partitions, but I've always seen it on the primary OS drive.
 
I know it's only slightly OT,

but, can we use SOME form of compression on those ?'s?
 
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