Compressed HDD
- Thread starter Juven
- Start date
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Juven.The earlier versions of Windows saw Drivespace or Double Space where the current partition was compressed and resulted in seeing the compressed partition as a second drive. The compressiong created one large file for the most part.
Double spacing a drive saw everything brought to a crawl and was only used as a storage method by simply increasing the amount of drive space available. With data backup programs now available like Norton Ghost or Acronis plus large capacity drives now seen that practice is seldom used. If the compressed data becomes corrupted somehow you lose everything then.
For any size drive the size of the compressed file depends on how much is currently on the drive. The old Double Spacing would turn an 80gb into a 160gb roughly.
Double spacing a drive saw everything brought to a crawl and was only used as a storage method by simply increasing the amount of drive space available. With data backup programs now available like Norton Ghost or Acronis plus large capacity drives now seen that practice is seldom used. If the compressed data becomes corrupted somehow you lose everything then.
For any size drive the size of the compressed file depends on how much is currently on the drive. The old Double Spacing would turn an 80gb into a 160gb roughly.
elitehacker
New Member
Compressing your hard drive is not really worth it, the performance hit is pretty bad, especially when you compress your entire hard drive.
I made the mistake some years back of double spacing a drive and never again was the concensus there! This is one reason why I typically run a dual or more hard drive setup to see storage and overall drive increased that way rather then seeing the "giant" performance hit you see with any type of drive compression.
Shrinking the size of a partition to see more drive space is the option preferred most often while seeing some risks to data. You can swiftly re-expand that partition over trying to restore a compressed drive if nothing goes wrong. I recently took a 238gb partition on a 250gb drive and shrunk that down to 157gb and then back without problems. But there was only 80gb of files on it at the time.
Both elitehacker and Cromewell can explain the benefits of GParted for something like that.
Shrinking the size of a partition to see more drive space is the option preferred most often while seeing some risks to data. You can swiftly re-expand that partition over trying to restore a compressed drive if nothing goes wrong. I recently took a 238gb partition on a 250gb drive and shrunk that down to 157gb and then back without problems. But there was only 80gb of files on it at the time.
Both elitehacker and Cromewell can explain the benefits of GParted for something like that.
I couldn't tell you about pendrives or usb flash drives since I've never used them. But comprssion means compressing data not just reducing the size of a partition. The immediate thought would be slower access time for any data there.
Think of it like opening a zip file first and then having to browse the contents after. You are adding a step or two there over simply opening a folder in an explorer window. Likewise you would see a decompression in order to see ready access to some degree.
Think of it like opening a zip file first and then having to browse the contents after. You are adding a step or two there over simply opening a folder in an explorer window. Likewise you would see a decompression in order to see ready access to some degree.
The only real advantage drive compression would see is on a system or portable(laptop or notebook) where there was no cd/dvd burner or other means for external storage. Then you would be looking for a way to compress existing data to provide more room for more.
On an old I486 with a 1.4gb drive I used the older double space Fat16/32 method there to increase available drive space and saw the end result leading to going for a 13gb drive then. For a flash or pen type drive foir file transfers between two system then I could the application there for simply cramming as much as you could onto one. Files over 1.44mb obviously rule out floppies.
On an old I486 with a 1.4gb drive I used the older double space Fat16/32 method there to increase available drive space and saw the end result leading to going for a 13gb drive then. For a flash or pen type drive foir file transfers between two system then I could the application there for simply cramming as much as you could onto one. Files over 1.44mb obviously rule out floppies.