XP folder compression - Is it safe???

Colin_da_Killer

Colin_da_Killer

Colin_da_Killer

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I am running out of disk space and have a lot of big audio and video files within folders, is it safe to compress these (they are quite important files). Will it yield much free space? (the files take up 120GB) how much can I expect from that?
 
It is unlikely to yield much space at all as your audio and video files will already compressed. At least I assume you're not storing your audio as wav files ?!

The folder compression is based on standard zip format so you can try zipping up a few files to see if you get much reduction.

Safety wise I've never tried using it but it was released with windows so it should be fine :)
 
Just given the old folder compression a try.

As expected text files compress quite well.

5079 text files taking up 58.7MB compressed to 37.9MB

On the other hand

569 mp3s taking up 2.36GB compressed to 2.35GB
 
just buy a new hard disk you tightwad. or delete some of that pr0n... :eek: :D

in all seriousness, a new hard disk really is the only way forward. disk space is hardly expensive nowadays. i would imagine your pc will be slower too as it will have to compress/uncompress on the fly whenever you want to access your files... :p

edit: see here.....

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307987

NTFS Compression
NTFS compression is available on volumes that use the NTFS file system, and NTFS compression has the following features and limitations:
• You can use NTFS compression to compress individual files and folders, as well as an entire NTFS volume.
• You can compress a folder without compressing its contents.
• You can work with NTFS-compressed files without decompressing them, because they are decompressed and recompressed without user intervention.
• You can display NTFS-compressed file and folder names in a different color to make them easier to identify.
• You may notice a decrease in performance when you work 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 performance.
• NTFS-compressed files and folders only remain compressed while they are stored on an NTFS Volume.
• You cannot encrypt an NTFS-compressed file.
Click to expand...
 
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