Have a small hard drive and a lot of data? No need to be embarrassed, you are not alone! In this guide you’ll learn how to compress the data on your drive; thus, saving space–with little to no side effects.
Important Note: There are arguments both ways, but I personally recommend you do not compress data on your system drive/partition. You have been warned.
Your Drive Needs NTFS
Ensure your drive is formatted with NTFS. If you know it is, skip down to More about NTFS Compression
Checking the File System of Your Drive
If you have Windows Vista, XP, 2000, or NT, you will likely be using NTFS on your drive. Check by doing the following:
- Open (My) Computer [WinKey+E]
- Right click on the drive letter you want to check and select Properties
- Next to File System: look for NTFS
- If it says FAT32, or anything else, then you are best to forget this guide exists, unless you know what you’re doing
More about NTFS Compression
NTFS Compression is extremly efficient; generally, read access does not slow down as decompression is done in real time.
Please note the following:
- Encrypted data cannot be compressed
- I strongly discourage compressing your Operating System drive
- You can compress a whole drive/partition
How to Use NTFS Compression
Compressing Individual Folders/Files
1. Right click on the folder/file and select Properties
2. Now click Advanced…
3. Check Compress contents to save disk space
4. Press OK
5. Press OK on the properties screen. If you compressed a folder, you will be prompted to apply changes to the folder or the folder and subfolders.
Windows will spend some time compressing the data. After sometime (depending on folder/file) size, thew folder/file will be compressed. The name will change from black to blue in explorer mode.
Folder Before
Folder After
Note: There is a large change because this folder contains a lot of Bitmaps, which compress very well. Your results may vary.
Compressing a Whole Drive/Partition
Before we begin, here’s one last warning: I strongly discourage compressing your Operating System drive.
1. Open (My) Computer [WinKey+E]
2. Right click on the drive letter you want to check and select Properties
3. Check Compress drive to save disk space
4. Press OK and get comfortable while your data is compressed!
What Next?
Looking for something else?
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8 Responses to Save Hard Drive Space with NTFS Compression
shehab6003
so i will compress the hole partition but when i nedd to open anything on the partition how long it’s gonna take for uncompressing ??
Rich
It will take longer, but you shouldn’t even notice a time difference. Just be sure you aren’t compressing you OS’s partition (usually C)
William Throop
I have quite a few (4000 or so) mp3’s on my drive, would compressing that folder be ok in you opinion, what happens when I add new files to that folder? are they automaticly compressed when added?
Rich
William, MP3s are so well compressed already that you will not see much space savings. If you compress a folder, newly added files are automatically compressed.
Susan D'Andrilli
Thank you.
John
i have only 1 hard drive my operating system is also on it but i have only used this computer for about 4 months and i have already used 250 GB of my 581 i am thinking about compressing it but i am not sure that is safe……….. what are your suggestions and will it wipe out my files???
Rich
I highly recommend you do not compress OS files. You have plenty of space left, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
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