Drive Compression

gramps

gramps

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The 2nd HDD in my laptop is getting full of images, just 21GB left of 690GB capacity.
I noticed that it was possible to compress the files, sub-folders and drive so gave it a go, took a few hours over night ... end result free space went from 21GB tp 23GB :confused:

I knew some files compressed better than others but I confess to being shocked that such a long process would yield such pathetic results.
Is there a better way? (Other than additional drives, which is in hand).
 
depends what you're compressing.

compressing already compressed file types such as zip or jpg will yield pathetic results.

personally i wouldn't bother with drives being so cheap, you'll generally see little extra space for an increased dent in system performance.
 
neil_g said:
depends what you're compressing.

compressing already compressed file types such as zip or jpg will yield pathetic results.

personally i wouldn't bother with drives being so cheap, you'll generally see little extra space for an increased dent in system performance.
Click to expand...

All RAW or jpeg files ... one of the WD 4TB external drives is on its way to supplement my existing 2TB + 6TB externals.
Surprised that there was so little to gain though. :)
 
If you try to compress compressed files you can end up losing space. JPEG is already compressed AFAIK but I have no idea about RAW.
 
TLR-330 said:
If you try to compress compressed files you can end up losing space. JPEG is already compressed AFAIK but I have no idea about RAW.
Click to expand...
There's nothing to stop RAW files being compressed as they are created on the camera, if the firmware supports it. No idea if any of them do or not, not something I've ever investigated.
 
Some do, some don't, and I believe Nikon offers the user the option of both, on some cameras.
If you're storing on a compressed drive, uncompressed files would be the most efficient option.
 
Certainly doesn't seem worth the time or effort to try this for pics.
 
neil_g said:
depends what you're compressing.

compressing already compressed file types such as zip or jpg will yield pathetic results.

personally i wouldn't bother with drives being so cheap, you'll generally see little extra space for an increased dent in system performance.
Click to expand...

You can actually "compress" JPEGs with virtually no loss in quality with Easy Thumbnails:

http://www.fookes.com/easy-thumbnails

If you set the quality to 90% with no resize then you can reduce a large JPEG to about 1/4 of it's filesize.

I use this method a lot when uploading pics to here or other places.

I also do it when backing up my photos to the cloud.
 
petersmart said:
You can actually "compress" JPEGs with virtually no loss in quality with Easy Thumbnails:

http://www.fookes.com/easy-thumbnails

If you set the quality to 90% with no resize then you can reduce a large JPEG to about 1/4 of it's filesize.

I use this method a lot when uploading pics to here or other places.

I also do it when backing up my photos to the cloud.
Click to expand...
Of course, it depends how compressed the jpg is to start with. Whether you should or whether it's worth it on the other hand is another matter. Again storage is pretty damn cheap.
 
TLR-330 said:
So, would you do that for your originals? Virtually is not the same as no loss of quality...
Click to expand...

Well almost all my photos on here use that method when uploading to here so feel quite happy with using it.

And I have a capped (15GB/month) broadband connection so use it when uploading my photos to the cloud.

And I can see no perceptible loss of quality compared to the originals so feel quite happy using it as a backup solution.

I also store my photos on HDDs and Blu-Ray etc.
 
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