Computer TnT

Somethings in Life is just never enough, money, time and of cause Hard Disk Space =P

So what can we do if we runs out of Hard Disk Space?

Just don’t buy another Hard Disk right away.

Here’s one useful Trick to increase your Hard Disk Space without buying new one especially for those who are using Laptop. (Currently Maximum Hard Disk Space for Laptops are 160GB only)

NTFS (New Technology File System) is high-performance and self-healing file system proprietary to Windows XP, Vista, 2003, 2000 & NT. It also supports file-level security, auditing, encrypt files and folder and most important Compression.

So what’s so good about this Compression thing?

This NTFS compression capability can shrink the size of individual files and folders, or entire drives giving significantly more Hard Disk Space!

When you use it, the files or folders will be compressed when they're on your Hard Disk to save space, but they will be Decompressed Automatically when you use them, and then Compressed again when stored on your Hard Disk.

This means that, unlike with a Compression program such as WinZip, you don't have to deal with Decompressing as well as Compressing Files.
You can also easily turn Compression on and off.

How much Disk Space can you save by using NTFS Compression?

That depends largely on the kinds of files you have on your system. Bit-mapped Graphic Files are very Compressible, so you'll save quite a bit of Hard Disk Space if you have many of them. Document Files, such as Microsoft Word Files, are also reasonably Compressible, while certain kinds of files, such as PDF (Adobe Acrobat) Files, are barely Compressible at all.

From O’Reilly’s Windows XP Hacks:
Bit-mapped .tif Graphic Files were Compressed by more than 80 percent, a Folder full of them shrunk from 295 MB to 57 MB.
Microsoft Word Files shrunk by 66 percent, a folder full of them shrunk from 131 KB to 44 KB.
PDF Files, by way of contrast, hardly Compressed at all, a group of them shrunk by just over 6 percent, from 5.59 MB to 5.27 MB.

Looking at the amount of Hard Disk Space reduced, it may seems like a ‘WOW’, but nothing in this world comes free, when using NTFS Compression you may notice a slight drop in System Performance. There may be a slight lag when opening or closing files, depending on the speed of your System, because the files have to be Decompressed in order for you to open them and Compressed when you save them.
But with newer Systems, though, you probably won't notice a lag.

Now here’s the important part after those long explanations =)

To use NTFS Compression requires your Hard Disk Volume to be in NTFS, so first step is to check if you Hard Disk are already NTFS.

Go to Start > My Computer > Right Click on your ‘C:’ Drive.
(The drive letter depends on your Hard Disk Partition, if you have more than one Partition you have to check all drive as different Hard Disk Partition can have different Hard Disk Volume)
Under ‘File System:’ is where your Hard Disk Volume is display.





If it display FAT32 it means your Hard Disk Volume requires Conversion to NTFS to use NTFS Compression.

This Conversion is a simple process and wouldn’t cause any damage to your Hard Disk and all your Data and Files stored inside.

Like I previously mentioned, Conversion is a simple process, go to Start > Run and key in ‘cmd’ and hit ‘OK’
You will see the Command Prompt Window Pop Out. Just Simply type in ‘convert C: /fs:ntfs’ where ‘C:’ is the volume you want to convert.
Wait awhile while Windows do the Conversion process.

And Vuala! Your Hard Disk Volume is now in NTFS!

My 2 cents worth:

Some of you might find that I explained too much and I should just jump to the point of Conversion.
But I believe that you must understand how something works before you do it.
Example: Those using older System, if there’s any Performance Issue after Conversion, people might start scolding me for never explain as in order to Convert back to FAT32 requires Re-format of whole drive.

Check out NTFS Compression post on how to use NTFS Compression =)



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