Re: Dell Dimension 4600 Desktop HDD disk compression
Compressing a HDD does not save that much space and it may cause problems.
1. You cannot compress Encrypted Files, so you would have to Un-Hide all of your files. And once compressed, they could not be Hidden/Encrypted again.
2. Compression cannot compress already compressed files, like JPEG, MP3 and Movie codec files. So if you wanted to compress a HDD that is filled with music, pictures, and movies you wouldn't save that much space.
3. The computer would slow down, When accessing a compressed file, Windows has to uncompress it, which takes a little longer.
4. If there was disaster and you were trying to Recover your files from a damaged HDD it would be much harder on a compressed drive then non
In a word, it's not worth it to me: Should I use Windows File Compression?
HDD's are relatively cheap these days. Since you have a secondary drive, Move all of your personal files (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos etc) but not programs, to the secondary drive. This will free up space on the C: drive. You also could clone your Current C: drive to a much larger one. However, remember, that you should always keep files you can't live without on more the One HDD.
Compressing a HDD does not save that much space and it may cause problems.
1. You cannot compress Encrypted Files, so you would have to Un-Hide all of your files. And once compressed, they could not be Hidden/Encrypted again.
2. Compression cannot compress already compressed files, like JPEG, MP3 and Movie codec files. So if you wanted to compress a HDD that is filled with music, pictures, and movies you wouldn't save that much space.
3. The computer would slow down, When accessing a compressed file, Windows has to uncompress it, which takes a little longer.
4. If there was disaster and you were trying to Recover your files from a damaged HDD it would be much harder on a compressed drive then non
In a word, it's not worth it to me: Should I use Windows File Compression?
HDD's are relatively cheap these days. Since you have a secondary drive, Move all of your personal files (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos etc) but not programs, to the secondary drive. This will free up space on the C: drive. You also could clone your Current C: drive to a much larger one. However, remember, that you should always keep files you can't live without on more the One HDD.
