Win XP File Compression

[TC10284]

Are there any immediate risks of data loss if I use the Disk Cleanup utility to compress old files on systems? I'm mainly inquiring about my file server. Disk Cleanup says I can save a pretty nice chunk of space if a compress the files I don't use. The files are on a RAID 5. I figure compressing them will take more time to open the files due to decompression and processing time.

 

[tk11]

I wouldn't be worried about data loss while compressing the files but if your worried at all, you should have a backup, compression or not.

The space savings reported may be exagerated by disk cleanup. Also if the files are already compressed (mp3, wma, avi, wmv, zip, rar, etc.) you won't save any space by compressing the files again.

The performance impact of compression is quite small now that processors are so fast. (In some cases performance may increase because less data is actually read from the disk)

In general disk compression is no longer very usefull because hard drives are so cheap.

 

[TC10284]

I should probably explain a little more about my setup. I have three 250GB ATA-100 drives on an Acard PCI RAID card in RAID 5. I have a little over 200GB free. I'm just trying to save a little space if possible.

As for the CPU's and RAM - CPU's are Dual P3 1GHz with 768MB PC133.

A lot of it are variations of the file types you listed. However a lot are .iso/.bin images that are backups of my game CDs/DVDs and OS distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.

I would like to get three more hard drives to upgrade my RAID 5 soon. But as you probably know, you'd have to install three drives of the same size to be used in a RAID 5. The next HD's I'll probably get for it will be >=400GB. I probably should invest in an SATA RAID 5 capable PCI controller instead of PATA RAID card I have now.

 

[tk11]

Because of the types of files your looking to compress I wouldn't bother... they're already compressed. Windows file compressioin won't compress the data further. As a test you can compress a file or folder and then view it's properites to see how much it was compressed by windows file compression.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: TC10284
Are there any immediate risks of data loss if I use the Disk Cleanup utility to compress old files on systems? I'm mainly inquiring about my file server. Disk Cleanup says I can save a pretty nice chunk of space if a compress the files I don't use. The files are on a RAID 5. I figure compressing them will take more time to open the files due to decompression and processing time.

There is no more risk of data loss than there would be copying the files elsewhere (e.g. if the power fails, the drive dies, etc).

You have 200GB free and your worried about this?