Any useful scenario for NTFS compression?

I am also wondering if it's mandatory to boot safe mode prior to compressing (less items locked by system I guess).

These are my results for /EXE packing the Windows\ASSEMBLY folder on my Win10 x64

Uncompressed: 871,3 MB (quite a bit huh)
XPRESS16K: 381 MB
LZX: 304 MB

eLPuSHeR said:

I am also wondering if it's mandatory to boot safe mode prior to compressing (less items locked by system I guess).

Probably a good idea. I use the /i to ignore errors but safe mode would be better. I'm doing (yet another) clean install at the moment. I'll compress it in safe mode this time once I've got everything installed. My C:\ drive is only 23.2GB so I have to compress as much as I can....

You might find this thread interesting also (bits of it anyway) Windows 10 Compression

Thanks. So far, so good for me. Loading apps feel snappier when compressed and I have now 20GB free out of 40GB of partition size.

Hello. I have made a small benchmark regarding loading times and the different options.
I used MS Office 2010 Word x64

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE - Uncompressed: 5.1257 seconds loading time
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE - LZX: 4.0160 seconds loading time
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE - Xpress4K: 2.9703 seconds loading time
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE - Xpress8K: 2.6571 seconds loading time
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE - Xpress16k: 2.5630 seconds loading time

It seems my i7 is pretty happy decompressing xpress16k.

eLPuSHeR said:

It seems my i7 is pretty happy decompressing xpress16k.

How do you get those timings? I picked xpress16k just because some random person on the internet recommended it - they said it was faster for them and it seems it is for you also.

I'd like to do the same test as you but I don't know how to measure the load time.

Out of interest did you compress the C:\Program Files\Common Files as well or just Winword.exe? Do you have SSD?

Hello.

For doing the tests I used AppTimer, a free app from Passmark.
After setting the relevant compression settings on whole MS Office folder, I did a quick defrag with Defraggler and reboot.
After 1 or 2 minutes after hard disk stopped, I launched AppTimer and record its log file to desktop.
For the other rounds, I did the same, changed compression scheme again, quick defrag, reboot...
Even if Apptimer says "do you want to replace the log" it WILL APPEND new data to it.
And this is on an somewhat old SATA II Seagate mechanical HD. Not SSD. I have a lot of folder compressed (Program Files, Program Files (x86), any other software folders I have at root, Windows\Assembly, I have even compressed (FOR TESTING PURPOSES): windows\system32 and windows\syswow64 folders.
I have also packed the OS binaries too (with compact /compactos:always) and I haven't noticed any special slowdowns when booting (by checking event viewer).

I have to do some more tests though. And remember, as always, your mileage may vary.

Best regards.

Hello again.
After doing some home chores, I have done another benchmark. This time using a smaller app (Mozilla Firefox). Man, this benchmarks are quite time consuming but fun. Too bad I am unable to keep original TABS (sorry for the bad formatting).

MOZILLA FIREFOX 41.0.2

Size on Disk Compression Ratio Loading Time
====================================================

Uncompressed 85.2 MB (1.0 to 1) 5.2817s
NTLZ1 64.8 MB (1.3 to 1) 4.6882s
Xpress4K 59.0 MB (1.4 to 1) 4.9851s
Xpress8K 56.5 MB (1.5 to 1) 4.9538s
Xpress16K 55.2 MB (1.5 to 1) 5.1729s
LZX 49.3 MB (1.7 to 1) 5.6415s

Some assorted thoughts...

1. I have included NTLZ1 compression just for comparison sake. This is the built-in NTFS compression that turns your folders and files blue. It's old, slow (specially for writing), single-threaded, and it will make your hard disk a fragmentation party. It didn't performed bad at loading times though.
2. Everything that is compressed tends to load faster than its uncompressed counterpart. Obvious. Less reading from disk.
3. Xpress8k seems to be a good middle-ground all around switch for both compression ratio and decompressing time.
4. If you are low on disk space and don't matter longer loading times go for LZX. Its compression ratio is pretty good (usually around 40-60%).

eLPuSHeR said:

Xpress8k seems to be a good middle-ground all around switch for both compression ratio and decompressing time.

I find the same - all compression methods were faster but xpress8k seems best for me.

This is opening WINWORD.exe (x64 from Office 2010 also) on i5 laptop with SSD. The OS was always in compressed state, I just changed compression on the Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories (ratio is just average of the 2).

Times are average of 5 runs using the Apptimer tool.

Code:

Compression	Ratio	Average
                        Time (s)

None                    0.4097
NTFS            1.5     0.3672   -10%
xpress4k        1.75    0.3886   -5%
xpress8k        1.85    0.36396  -11%
xpress16k       1.95    0.37702  -8%
lzx             2.3     0.38908  -5%

Thank you very much for posting your benchmark.

Best regards.