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Old 2009-08-21, 20:31   Link #21
Jinto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chikorita157 View Post
Note that it's not a very good idea to compress the whole hard drive since it uses more CPU usage (and it's never a good idea to compress the operating system files, I tried that and it made my computer run slower) since the computer needs to decompress and recompress when a file is access, but it's not that much of a impact with faster processors, but it's still a performance hit... You should only really use it on your documents and video game files... Compressing other than the following can cause the system performance to degrade.
The hdd is actually the speed bottleneck of a typical PC today. So compressing files can actually make things faster (decompressing does not use too much resources ... at least not that much that the RAM and CPU cannot handle it - very useful here are mulity core processors).
Still, I am against compression. But for another reason.
I wouldn't want to rely on compressed data, since it has a worse read/write error tolerance compared to uncompressed data. This is because the Shannon entropy will be raised significantly by compressing data. Which makes a possible loss of information all the worse.
For example if in your uncompressed video file a bit is flipped it may produce an ugly block when playing it back. Using compression such a flipped bit can make the whole video file useless (not decompressable anymore or very alterated when uncompressed).
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Old 2009-08-21, 23:16   Link #22
chikorita157
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinto View Post
The hdd is actually the speed bottleneck of a typical PC today. So compressing files can actually make things faster (decompressing does not use too much resources ... at least not that much that the RAM and CPU cannot handle it - very useful here are mulity core processors).
Still, I am against compression. But for another reason.
I wouldn't want to rely on compressed data, since it has a worse read/write error tolerance compared to uncompressed data. This is because the Shannon entropy will be raised significantly by compressing data. Which makes a possible loss of information all the worse.
For example if in your uncompressed video file a bit is flipped it may produce an ugly block when playing it back. Using compression such a flipped bit can make the whole video file useless (not decompressable anymore or very alterated when uncompressed).
I was mainly talking about NTFS compression... NTFS compression does not actually compresses the file in a different format, it transparently compress and decompress which could make it faster even if most laptops ship with slower 5400 RPM HD, which can make it faster. You have only mentioned compression not done by the filesystem (e.g. zip/rar/etc compression/decompression).

This is pretty much sums up what I was talking about with NTFS compression:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
NTFS can compress files using a variant of the LZ77 algorithm (also used in the popular ZIP file format). Although read-write access to compressed files is transparent, Microsoft recommends avoiding compression on server systems and/or network shares holding roaming profiles because it puts a considerable load on the processor.

Single-user systems with limited hard disk space will probably use NTFS compression successfully. The slowest link in a computer is not the CPU but the speed of the hard drive, so NTFS compression allows the limited, slow storage space to be better used, in terms of both space and (often) speed. NTFS compression can also serve as a replacement for sparse files when a program (e.g. a download manager) is not able to create files without content as sparse files.
I tried NTFS compression on my older Macbook Pro with Vista and it gives me poor results and slow performance, mainly because I compressed the OS files which is not recommended... and also the CPU being taxed by the Anti-Virus software. It's safe to apply NTFS compression on Program Files and documents since they aren't being accessed as much as the system files, just don't apply NTFS compression to the whole HD, it's not a good idea.

Another thing to be careful with NTFS compression is that files will fragment more quickly, which can be the cause of slow performance. It's best to defragment the whole hard drive every week to avoid that.
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Old 2009-08-22, 00:40   Link #23
Furuno
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KarmiDex View Post
Oh okay xD Kinda at lost here but...screenshots of what?
Its like 1:05AM so I'm like...abit drained here.
Right click on your drive and choose properties, take a shot of that before and after the disk eating festival...
And ermmm....
Quote:
Originally Posted by KarmiDex View Post
Question ^^;;;;
Cause I sort of...have lack of knowledge about computer stuff at this level but...
Whats compressing files?
Compressing is basically reducing the size of a file by using a certain kind of technique. For example, say that I'm having a 1MB text file, and I'm compressing it down to 100KB.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KarmiDex View Post
And erm...also o-o;
I don't know I think I remembered asking the family technician if I can add like...a new drive or upgrade space but he was like 'Nu no can do'
Thats why I keep daydreaming about Vista xD cause was like 'Whoaaa...can run faster'
*Eventhough is actually quite happy with the current desktop*
Huh why he says he cannot add a new drive in your PC? I belive that even tought you use old PC, there'll be some unused hard drive connectors, unless you have 6 HDDs . And no, vista is no faster than XP, vista using more resource than XP. Windows 7 is much better. Well, I'm a linux user anyway...

...since this is quite a unique case, I'm excited to see it with my eyes, let's see if I can find some teleportation device :P...
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Old 2009-08-22, 04:41   Link #24
Jinto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chikorita157 View Post
I was mainly talking about NTFS compression... NTFS compression does not actually compresses the file in a different format, it transparently compress and decompress which could make it faster even if most laptops ship with slower 5400 RPM HD, which can make it faster. You have only mentioned compression not done by the filesystem (e.g. zip/rar/etc compression/decompression).

This is pretty much sums up what I was talking about with NTFS compression:


I tried NTFS compression on my older Macbook Pro with Vista and it gives me poor results and slow performance, mainly because I compressed the OS files which is not recommended... and also the CPU being taxed by the Anti-Virus software. It's safe to apply NTFS compression on Program Files and documents since they aren't being accessed as much as the system files, just don't apply NTFS compression to the whole HD, it's not a good idea.

Another thing to be careful with NTFS compression is that files will fragment more quickly, which can be the cause of slow performance. It's best to defragment the whole hard drive every week to avoid that.
On server systems one would use a raid system which is faster to begin with. So there can be significant additional load.

LZ77 is very fast when decompressing. I wrote an LZ77 decompressor with decrypter for the archive files of a certain 3D game in C# and never actually had a performance issue with reading data (hdd would be the major bottleneck). But writing compressed is definitly slower (depending on compression level) and more of a performance issue.

Now when a system boots up, all the system files will be loaded into RAM. Reading is not the real performance issue even for system files. But there is the local disk cache (pagefile) that is heavily used in Windows (even when it technically isn't necessary because of a large RAM - especially in Vista). This one file will be written a lot and hence is a performance killer. Similar files are the working copies for the registry and other such working copies that are persistent for only one user session.

edit:

Actually the pagefile could be moved to an uncompressed partition (if available) to speed things up a little bit.
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Last edited by Jinto; 2009-08-22 at 05:03.
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Old 2009-08-23, 11:02   Link #25
chikorita157
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I also found out that the next version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard also have support for HFS+ Compression, which works pretty much the same as NTFS compression since it's transparent and the files will be still readable with older versions of Mac OS X, but it's only applies to read only files, unlike NTFS Compression which you can still modify the file, which won't be a big help for sparse files
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Old 2009-08-24, 05:58   Link #26
KarmiDex
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To Furuno: I don't know if these are the screenshots you want but yeah x.x; here they are:

Before
Spoiler:



After - Estimating time at about....10 mins later
Spoiler:




And errrmmm....
I don't know if its right to upload this or its relevant but I thought you guys might need this screenshot:

Spoiler:

The 'Compress Old Files' actually grow alot by the duration of the space intake x__x So yeah...thought it'll be relevant to show this
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Old 2009-08-24, 06:03   Link #27
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Really it's more easy to buy new pc, then reviving the dead. Whatever you'll do, not much profit you'd gain...
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Old 2009-08-24, 06:55   Link #28
Furuno
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My first thought is : check inside your computer especially around the drive bay for carnivorous micro bunnies, it seems kinda populer recently. Of course, I'm joking, but wow the space really decreasing for some 200 MB... What are you doing during that 10 minutes?

Well, judging from the amount of space that you recover from disk cleanup, I don't think disk cleanup can help you much in there... 45 MB...

Indeed, just as Dreamtale said, it might be easier to buy new HDD (or the whole PC if you want to), because I'm started thinking that there's something wrong with your HDD. Oh, and you might want to do some check disk and/or try reinstalling first...
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Old 2009-08-24, 18:35   Link #29
arenine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Furuno View Post
My first thought is : check inside your computer especially around the drive bay for carnivorous micro bunnies, it seems kinda populer recently. Of course, I'm joking, but wow the space really decreasing for some 200 MB... What are you doing during that 10 minutes?
It only decreased by 20 MB.

Also, compressing 45 MB is negligible and was the first screenshot from when you started your computer?
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Old 2009-08-24, 21:34   Link #30
KarmiDex
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arenine View Post
It only decreased by 20 MB.

Also, compressing 45 MB is negligible and was the first screenshot from when you started your computer?
Well it was when I first restart my comp.
Usually when I restart my comp as an experimenting method, it'll at leas decrease down to 30-40MB
>>; But I guess I've stated before, sometimes I have to shut down my comp for 2 days just to get it down to at least 4GB at max

And thanks Dreamtale xD Thats what I'm actually saving money for
I've been trying to call my family technician but he's been busy all the time so >>; may just find another technician close to where I live...

And not much really, Furuno....Errr...had msn with 4 windows---
Actually, if Firefox had alot of tabs, would it also heave and giving effect to the space eating carnival?
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Old 2009-08-24, 21:51   Link #31
chikorita157
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I know another possible cause... the paging file... Usually, it's best just to manually set the paging size. It should at least be double the memory. (meaning if you have 1 GB of RAM, you should set the paging file to 2 GB. If you have more than 4 GB, a paging file will become unnecessary since you won't likely use all the RAM possible.

Also, you can also move the paging file to another drive, but that drive must be plugged in when you boot into your computer. The benefit of having the paging file on another drive is that it will take less load on the main HD, which can make your system faster.
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Old 2009-08-25, 00:35   Link #32
Furuno
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Oh yeah it's only 20 MB, I was kinda sleepy last time I post

Well, yeah judging from the amount of reduction and what are you doing, I agree with chikorita157. It's probably the paging file trying to increase it size and the browser cache. You can also try to disable (or at least reduce) the browser cache in Firefox by going to Edit > Preference > Advanced > Network. Altough usually Firefox won't use a lot of amount of cache, and disabling cache might result in slower browsing experience, especially if your internet connection is not that good.
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Old 2009-08-25, 05:15   Link #33
Dreamtale
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I told about that at once

So, we need to see screen of your swap/paging settings
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Old 2009-08-25, 09:28   Link #34
KarmiDex
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Erm Furuno o.o;
I can't seem to see Edit -> Preferences
But I saw Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network

Is that it?
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Old 2009-08-25, 10:48   Link #35
Furuno
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Most probably, well... I'm using Firefox 3.5.2 (Shiretoko) in Ubuntu 9.04 by the way and it's under the edit menu
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Old 2009-08-27, 12:00   Link #36
KarmiDex
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x__x sorry for delay of reply xD;; I wasn't sure what to do at first and ehehe

But erm

So do I check at...

Network -> Connection -> Configure how Firefox connects to the Internet?
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Old 2009-08-27, 13:34   Link #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KarmiDex View Post
x__x sorry for delay of reply xD;; I wasn't sure what to do at first and ehehe

But erm

So do I check at...

Network -> Connection -> Configure how Firefox connects to the Internet?
No, look at Offline Storage where the "Use up to ____ MB of space for cache." I don't know why we're messing with the firefox cache, it's only 50 MB at default. It hardly relates to the bigger problem.
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Old 2009-08-31, 10:33   Link #38
KarmiDex
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Well I don't think I'm gonna mess with the cache since I don't feel its all that necessary...
but I'm gonna try exploring C drive and delete some temporary files or something.
Mean time x__x Im gonna try calling my family technician and really persist for him to come over O-o and maybe ask for a new HDD...I guess.

But I just wanna say thank you all for helping me ;__; even your time replying to this thread means something to me xD Even though there's really not much I can do aside from just buying a new HDD or calling a technician to settle all of it.

Especially to Furuno, Chikorita, Dreamtale and Jinto xD
Cause I really gain alot of unexpected knowledge about IT from you guys and I really appreciate it

*hugs all* I'll keep you guys up to date with any changes about my comp~ x3
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