Q's on nfts compression

[XtremeMaC]

hi there

i dunno why I had not been using the ntfs compression option but i just started using it to gain some space though i've enough..

what i wonder is when I open a compressed file how do i view it, I mean does it quickly extract the contents to temp and view it or what? also would it take too long to open up if i was to compress a large file or set my hdd to compress automatically?

[leeleeleelee]

I read about NTFS compression some time ago. From memory, whenever the files are required from the hard disk, the hard disk reads the compressed data, the cpu uncompresses the data and then passes it on to the next process. I don't know if the uncompression process (of large files especially), uses the hard disk again to store files temporarily.

Again from memory, if the hard disk is slow and the cpu is fast, then compressing a drive/partition will quicken the whole process. The hard disk doesn't have to move too much or go too far. If the hard disk is much faster than the cpu then compression may not help.

Compression would help save space if the disk/partition is running low. But if that disk/partition is used for storing already compressed files eg. mp3, jpeg, etc. then the compressing the disk/partition wouldn't help much.

This is how I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.