Hi
I have a Hard Drive that is used mostly for storage only. Is there a way for me to increase the capacity of this drive. I am not worried if this impairs the performance of the drive
physically (and logically thinking), no.
but you can reduce cluster size if you are using ntfs.
A interesting question, I would answer also that's "impossible" but as nothing is impossible maybe someone show us some trick 
You could remove some programs to free up space, if that's what you mean. To physically increase the amount the drive can handle is impossible.
i remember in early 1990's, if you format your disk with DOS, you will get less space than in Mac. the 1.44M floppy disc will become 2M if formatted with Mac.
MAC can read DOS formatted disc, but DOS cannot read Mac formatted disc.
did you try enable compression?
It can be . But i think its not a good way . I suggest you buy a new harddisk
| internetjobs wrote: |
| did you try enable compression? |
What exactly is Disk Compression.
http://www.udopage.com/xp/udopage_2.php
I am running XP
I also remember that there was a type of Disk Compression that cold almost double your data storage on your driveWhy don't you just buy new Harddisk? It's ridiculously cheap now. Last time I checked the 1 Tera Byte HD is just NT 4000+ (Taiwan Dollar) or roughly 130 USD.
If you under linux, or other OS where you can change file system type, than you can change file system. This shuldn`t increase physical capacity of the disk, but decrease expenses on markup.
For windows I think you can try compress image of hd.
Physically you can't. Yes, but through windows compression facilities you can increase the storage capacity of the hard drive as the files and folders stored in the disk drive will be compressed.
Just get another hard drive. Suggestions such as using compression WILL reduce your performance and I'm assuming you weren't just looking for tips like "delete old programs that you don't use any more"
Alright i know but if you buy new one your thats make sure your data will never lost and its faster then compression
yes, you can enable compression... take a look at KGB archiver, it's one of the best. this applies only if you have decent hardware
If you what to increase the disk space without physically upgrading your HDD, then the only way i can think of is using disk compression as stated by internetjobs. You can do this by double clcking on your "My Computer" icon, right click on your HDD (C:, D: etc) then select properties. Under the general tab, you will be able to see an option called "Compress this drive to save disk space". Check it and you should be getting extra disk space. Alternatively, you can try using a 3rd party disk compression software.
You can also use disk cleanup wizard to help remove unwanted files and temp files.
^Be warned: compression will give you a little more space, but it will make your computer slower!
Buying an upgraded hard drive is best.
Hi
thx for advice everyone. I decided to look at all my files and got ride of heaps of stuff I never really needed.
| Possum wrote: |
Hi
thx for advice everyone. I decided to look at all my files and got ride of heaps of stuff I never really needed. |
That's the best and easiest option.
Use a free program called WinDirStat to find out what is taking up the most space, so you can delete that first. Google search for it to download. | Possum wrote: |
Hi
I have a Hard Drive that is used mostly for storage only. Is there a way for me to increase the capacity of this drive. I am not worried if this impairs the performance of the drive |
Like a previous poster, I remember compressing a 40MB HD to get 72MB (Yes, I did mean MB, lol). Compression works, but I agree with others and say it's probably more cost effective to just buy a new drive with the prices these days and the time you're gonna spend finding the software and getting it to work.NTFS compression can be a great tool ... if you know how it works.
The algorithm used for compression is LZW - lossless and most effective on sparse files (in case of NTFS's implementation of it, files with numerous repeated binary zeroes).
Take some examples -
Compressing a drive/directory that contains mostly MP3's - bad idea.
Compressing a drive/directory that contains mostly text files - good idea.
Comressing that huge outlook archive that you haven't touched in months - awesome idea.
The performance hit arising out of NTFS compression will hardly be noticeable if you have a relatively modern CPU. But it is not justifiable unless the space benefit is substantial.
Infact, the performance can actually be better than an uncompressed file storage, in case of huge, highly sparse files (wherein, the disk I/O speed becomes the bottleneck, rather than the CPU).
The good thing is that you can enable compression for individual files and folders (unlike the old time Drvspace tool that only did it at disk level). I know many had COMPRESSION on and it F**KED the drive
DO NOT TURN IT ON!!!
Let me repeat myself
DO NOT USE THE COMPRESSION feature on XP you will mess up your drive and will slow down to a point of insanity if not damage your drive itself. also when you try to UNCOMPRESS well good luck it will take you a whole day to decompress 30GB of data
| fadirocks wrote: |
I know many had COMPRESSION on and it F**KED the drive
DO NOT TURN IT ON!!!
Let me repeat myself
DO NOT USE THE COMPRESSION feature on XP you will mess up your drive and will slow down to a point of insanity if not damage your drive itself. also when you try to UNCOMPRESS well good luck it will take you a whole day to decompress 30GB of data |
You got that right! It's better to get your hands on a bigger drive than try to squeeze a few more MB out of a drive and risk your data.you can't physically make it have more room, but if it's just for storage, you could try compressing all the files into a .zip or something
