Is there any point in compressing an installation media on NTFS?

Hello @TheCars,

You might find this interesting and useful . . .

 Ventoy

About Ventoy:

Ventoy is an open source tool to create a bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.

With Ventoy, you don't need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly. You can copy many files at a time and Ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them.

Most types of OS are supported [ Windows/WinPE/Linux/Unix/VMware/Xen... ], including, x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI and MIPS64EL UEFI.

Basically, depending on the size of the USB, you can have ALL your Bootable ISO's on the USB. Additionally, you can also have Portable Apps, Tools, Utilities, Folders, and Files, ALL on the Non-Bootable Partition of the USB.

> Ventoy - Main Page - 1.0.80 Release
> Ventoy - Screenshots
> Ventoy - Download Page
> Ventoy - The ULTIMATE USB Boot Drive [ Video ]

Also, @EdTittel, a Windows Insider MVP member, wrote this in his blog . . .

> TOP 3 2020 WINDOWS 10 UTILITIES

I have created a USB using Ventoy and find it an invaluable resource. It is probably the best thing that has ever happened to Bootable Media!

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I hope this helps.

TheCars said:

I load my ISOs onto a 32GB flash drive formatted with NTFS since Rufus allows that option, eliminating the 4GB limit for FAT32s. Instead it seems to just split it between 2 partitions and has worked fine for me in the past.

So really I don't mind how big the image would get if uncompressed, usually about 8GB. Nor do I mind if it would take any longer during installation. I don't want it to slow my my PC at all though.

So is there any point? Would it benefit anywhere else?

No point whatsoever.