Compress Drive to save space

[cliff]

I have never used this feature so I have no idea how compression works in
regards to photo and video files becoming degraded. While cataloging drives
stored in removable drawers I came across one where the compression box in
drive properties was checked. The directories are blue BTW. I decided to
uncheck this box and upon clicking 'apply' I am presented with a message
that the operation of uncompressing will take 4 hours plus. I canceled as
there was no warning or option to do so. I now see that some of the folders
are black and most remain blue telling me they are still compressed.
My questions are:
1) How do I get the rest of the files uncompressed?
2) How does this form of compression effect photo and video files and
should I select to compress drives in this manner should I avoid doing so on
a drive will all media files?

Thanks for and comments
Cliff

 

[Kerry Brown]

I have never used this feature so I have no idea how compression
works in regards to photo and video files becoming degraded. While
cataloging drives stored in removable drawers I came across one where
the compression box in drive properties was checked. The directories
are blue BTW. I decided to uncheck this box and upon clicking 'apply'
I am presented with a message that the operation of uncompressing
will take 4 hours plus. I canceled as there was no warning or option
to do so. I now see that some of the folders are black and most
remain blue telling me they are still compressed. My questions are:
1) How do I get the rest of the files uncompressed?
2) How does this form of compression effect photo and video files and
should I select to compress drives in this manner should I avoid
doing so on a drive will all media files?

Thanks for and comments
Cliff

File compression in XP will not affect/degrade the quality of media files.
XP uses lossless compression. You are probably thinking of .jpg or .mp3
compression which is lossy compression. To answer your specific questions.

1) How do I get the rest of the files uncompressed?

Start the process again and let it continue until it is finished. Make sure
there is enough free space on the drive.

2) How does this form of compression effect photo and video files and
should I select to compress drives in this manner should I avoid
doing so on a drive will all media files?

As mentioned above XP file compression is lossless. As to if you should
compress media files it depends on the file format. If a picture was stored
as a .bmp, .tiff, or a raw image then quite a bit of disk space would be
saved. If an image was stored as a .jpg then using XP file compression would
not save any space as the file is already compressed. As media files are
usually stored in some kind of compressed format as a rule of thumb there is
nothing to be gained by using XP file compression.

Kerry

 

[cliff]

File compression in XP will not affect/degrade the quality of media
files. XP uses lossless compression. You are probably thinking of
.jpg or .mp3 compression which is lossy compression. To answer your
specific questions.

Start the process again and let it continue until it is finished.
Make sure there is enough free space on the drive.


As mentioned above XP file compression is lossless. As to if you
should compress media files it depends on the file format. If a
picture was stored as a .bmp, .tiff, or a raw image then quite a bit
of disk space would be saved. If an image was stored as a .jpg then
using XP file compression would not save any space as the file is
already compressed. As media files are usually stored in some kind of
compressed format as a rule of thumb there is nothing to be gained by
using XP file compression.
Kerry

Thank you very much for a good explanation. I did find that I had to click
the compress box again and wait for the files to be compressed and now
reverse the process. I am not sure if there is enough space as I have no
idea how to calculate this factor. What happen when it is decided that there
is not space needed? I am not sure if this whole concept of compressing a
drive is actually a good idea considering the time it takes. My archival
method so far is to use bays and drawers. HDDs are cheaper than time itself
the way I see it. To wait several hours to compress and uncompress how much
am I really gaining?
As far as the compression technique I wonder if only time is lost. How does
the operation know a file is not a media file or an AVI is not compressed or
a RAW photo file so what would happen in that case? Email is compressed by
OE so what else other than text would be compacted?

Thanks for any further comments.
Cliff

 

[Kerry Brown]

cliff wrote:

Thank you very much for a good explanation. I did find that I had to
click the compress box again and wait for the files to be compressed
and now reverse the process. I am not sure if there is enough space
as I have no idea how to calculate this factor. What happen when it
is decided that there is not space needed? I am not sure if this
whole concept of compressing a drive is actually a good idea
considering the time it takes. My archival method so far is to use
bays and drawers. HDDs are cheaper than time itself the way I see it.
To wait several hours to compress and uncompress how much am I really
gaining? As far as the compression technique I wonder if only time is
lost.
How does the operation know a file is not a media file or an AVI is
not compressed or a RAW photo file so what would happen in that case?
Email is compressed by OE so what else other than text would be
compacted?
Thanks for any further comments.
Cliff

The operation doesn't know if a file is already compressed and tries to
compress it further. This may actually result in a slightly larger file.

Compressing a whole drive is not recommended. As you say hard drives are
cheap enough it makes more sense to install another drive or replace a drive
with a bigger one.

Kerry

 

[cliff]

cliff wrote:



The operation doesn't know if a file is already compressed and tries
to compress it further. This may actually result in a slightly larger
file.
Compressing a whole drive is not recommended. As you say hard drives
are cheap enough it makes more sense to install another drive or
replace a drive with a bigger one.

Kerry

Agreed. Thanks for the response.

Regards.

Cliff