Jump to content

Does compression actually save you space?

orangecat
By orangecat
in Troubleshooting
 Share
Posted

SO i use NTFS compression on my games drive and it has saved me some space according to Windows but can i actually fill up the drive more?

 

For example my games drive is 640GB in size and i save about 44.4GB because of NTFS compression but can i actually fit 44.4GB worth of stuff on the drive? Or will Windows not let me fill up the extra space?

 

I assume you can't fill the drive past capacity even with compression or can you?

 

post-858-0-83055900-1416461207.jpg

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/254053-does-compression-actually-save-you-space/
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

yes also when you enable it expect longer load times for everything

In my experience it hasn't affected my load times at all.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

SO i use NTFS compression on my games drive and it has saved me some space according to Windows but can i actually fill up the drive more?

 

For example my games drive is 640GB in size and i save about 44.4GB because of NTFS compression but can i actually fit 44.4GB worth of stuff on the drive? Or will Windows not let me fill up the extra space?

 

I assume you can't fill the drive past capacity even with compression or can you?

 

attachicon.gifdrive stuff.JPG

Filling past drive capacity is suicide if your computer decides to let you... I have done that but on a larger scale with multiple OSs. It hurt physically (I bricked OSX and Linux in one fell swoop doing this on my multibooting machine).

But expect, as said by @thekeemo , longer load times. That's about it that I know of.

My account is almost entirely dormant. Hope you all are having a grand time. Many years of fun were had here.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Put some scrunched up paper in a bin.

 

Now step on it and compress it.

 

Did that make room for more paper in the bin?

But what happens if you uncomress the paper the bin will overflow. Ovbiously a drive can't overflow so i assume Windows will not allow me to fill the drive just incase the data needs to be decompressed.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

But what happens if you uncomress the paper the bin will overflow. Ovbiously a drive can't overflow so i assume Windows will not allow me to fill the drive just incase the data needs to be decompressed.

Exactly.

"Rawr XD"

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

But what happens if you uncomress the paper the bin will overflow. Ovbiously a drive can't overflow so i assume Windows will not allow me to fill the drive just incase the data needs to be decompressed.

Windows will tell you when you'e out of and getting extremely low on drive space. So long as you don't overwrite OSs with your own stupidity (*cough* I did that) you'll be fine. My school's PCs give me hell about this all the time because they have 80GB hard drives that are full and you can't even download a 1kb Google drive folder....

My account is almost entirely dormant. Hope you all are having a grand time. Many years of fun were had here.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

10000RPM hard drive....?

Nope just a normal WD Blue 7200RPM drive and its sata 2.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Nope just a normal WD Blue 7200RPM drive and its sata 2.

What performance-enhancing drugs is your PC taking?

And where can I get them?

And are they compatible with Windows 7-10?

My account is almost entirely dormant. Hope you all are having a grand time. Many years of fun were had here.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

That doesn't exactly answer my question but ok.

It wouldn't let you fill it past the point where if the data were to be uncompressed then it would overfill. I'm not exactly sure how it does this though, possibly doesn't compress data that comes towards the end of the drive's capacity.

"Rawr XD"

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

What performance-enhancing drugs is your PC taking?

And where can I get them?

And are they compatible with Windows 7-10?

They are not compatible with Windows 8+ LOL and you didn't hear anything from me....

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

It wouldn't let you fill it past the point where if the data were to be uncompressed then it would overfill. I'm not exactly sure how it does this though, possibly doesn't compress data that comes towards the end of the drive's capacity.

I assume thats how ti works but then whats the point of compression if you can't fit more data? it makes sense if you can't rewrite to the drive like a DVD or something but as for a HDD I just don't understand.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

are you honestly worried enough about 50 extra gigs, that you will put up with stupid loading times on your games??
Just buy another 1 TB Drive; They aren't expensive.

 

Spoiler

I7 4790K @4.5 Ghz 1.294V

VALIDATION, MSI Z97 Gaming 7, 24GB DDR3 1600, Asus Strix 1070 8GB OC@ 2.2Ghz, Corsair graphite series 760T (Black), Cooler master V850, NH-D15 w/LNA ,1TB Samsung 850 Evo,  480GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD, 3TB Seagate Barracuda x 3, 1 TB WD Passport (Backup drive), 2 TB WD Passport (Backup Drive 2),  Windows 10 Pro x64 (uhg), Logitech G900 Chaos (Main), Steelseries Rival (FADE) (Courtesy of Edzel Yago, Thanks Ed), Steelsieres Rival 300 Hyperbeast Special Edition, Coolermaster Quickfire TKL (MX Blue), Razer Blackwidow Tournament edition (Greens).  Audio: Sennheiser HD598 SE, Edifier S1000DB, AudioEngine D1 DAC; Yamaha MG06X Mixer & AudioTechnica AT2020.

 

Phones; Daily drivers: Nexus 6P 64GB/iPhone 6 (Music), Apple Watch, Apple AirPods.

Laptop: 2015 Macbook Pro 13, 8GB of RAM, 2.7Ghz i5, 240GB Apple SSD. 

 

Spoiler

Plex Server: i7 3770, Gigabyte Board, 16GB DDR3 1600, Asus Strix GTX 1050ti 4GB, 120GB SSD Boot Drive, 8 x 3TB Seagate Barracuda, Rosewill RSV-R4000 With 2 Rosewill Hot Swap 4x Backplane Bays, 1050 Watt Corsair HX Series PSU,Hyper T2, Windows 10 Pro 

 

I also do Youtube, check me out!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I assume thats how ti works but then whats the point of compression if you can't fit more data? it makes sense if you can't rewrite to the drive like a DVD or something but as for a HDD I just don't understand.

you make a point, but its logically stupid. in your scenario, the compression did nothing, since you have to keep the space you gained by compressing empty, for decompression. but it doesnt work like that, what you decompress goes into RAM. and when you want to store it again, it compresses the data, then it writes it to the drive. so you do effectively gain some space, but at the expense of the cpu cycles needed to compress and decompress the data

"Unofficially Official" Leading Scientific Research and Development Officer of the Official Star Citizen LTT Conglomerate | Reaper Squad, Idris Captain | 1x Aurora LN


Game developer, AI researcher, Developing the UOLTT mobile apps


G SIX [My Mac Pro G5 CaseMod Thread]

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Troubleshooting

×