Flash-based solid-state drives with more than 64 or 128 GB of capacity are fairly small, but they're still really expensive relative to hard drives. Compressing the Windows partition frees up some space, but is that really a good idea?
As enthusiasts, we're forced to contend with a number of obstacles in our quest to continually keep performance balanced without overspending. New processors, graphics cards, memory kits, power deliver, and storage performance are all potential bottlenecks along the way. Fortunately, capacity isn't as big of an issue. Even 2.5” hard drives offer capacities of more than 750 GB, which is more than enough for most folks. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to continue inflating the size of a Windows installation, you're still left with plenty of room for music, movies, games, and photos. Of course, there's always the option to use 3.5" drives, which currently hold multiple terabytes each. Talk about shattering capacity barriers.
Depending on the model and manufacturer, you could have found 2 TB drives for as little as $80 before the recent flooding in Thailand, which had a severe impact on the supply of conventional hard drives. Filling such a large repository might sound unfathomable to mainstream folks, though anyone with an extensive movie collection could manage it in fairly short order. Be that as it may, storage space is typically not an issue today for folks with big hard drives in their machines.
The situation is quite different for adopters of solid-state technology, though. These drives are just as easy to fill with data. But, compared to mechanical hard drives, they offer a lot less capacity, making each available gigabyte count for that much more. In fact, each gigabyte is quite literally more valuable, since you often have to pay more than $2/GB of solid-state storage, where hard drives are priced in the pennies per gigabyte range.
Small SSDs equipped with less than 60 GB reach their limits almost immediately just by installing Windows, an office productivity suite, and importing email. The lack of capacity is further exacerbated by the fact that wear leveling algorithms don’t work efficiently when the drives are completely filled. That's why we often recommend using an SSD for performance-sensitive information and hard drives for user data.
We already examined methods for recovering free space from an SSD in a separate article, so today we're focusing on the pros and cons of another approach that Windows offers right out of its box: the NTFS file system's data compression feature. Once you enable it, no further action is required, making it pretty convenient. But are there other caveats to bear in mind?
Our test lab addresses the pressing questions: how do you enable data compression, what is compressed, how much capacity can be gained on a typical Windows installation, and how much does this feature affect the performance of the SSD?
- More SSD Capacity Through NTFS Compression
- NTFS Is 19 Years Old
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- NTFS Compression In Practice
- Benchmark Results: Sequential Read And Write (CrystalDiskMark)
- Benchmark Results: 4 KB Random Reads/Writes (CrystalDiskMark)
- Benchmark Results: 512 KB Random Reads/Writes (CrystalDiskMark)
- Benchmark Results: Launching Applications, Windows Startup And Shutdown
- Benchmark Results: PCMark 7
- Benchmark Results: SYSmark 2012
- Should You Compress Data On Your SSD?


However, in the conclusion, it is stated that compression ends up writing more vs. uncompressed NTFS, thus consuming more PE cycles. Shouldn't the opposite be true? When writing to the file system, if a file is compressible it should take up less space and therefore conserve more PEs (though actually compressing the files for the first time should result in more writes).
Why does on-the-fly compression result in more writes even though the amount to be written is smaller?
However, in the conclusion, it is stated that compression ends up writing more vs. uncompressed NTFS, thus consuming more PE cycles. Shouldn't the opposite be true? When writing to the file system, if a file is compressible it should take up less space and therefore conserve more PEs (though actually compressing the files for the first time should result in more writes).
Why does on-the-fly compression result in more writes even though the amount to be written is smaller?
Keep in mind, whatever storage option you use, you need room to install updates on top of installing the game, most especially for MMOGs. This means room to download the update AND install it.
Correctomundo. Compression involves replace repeated occurrences of data with references to a single copy of that data existing earlier in the input (uncompressed) data stream. That's why it's not right to think of a compressed archive as a container that stores any given file into a discrete space. If anything, the files kind of overlap in a big mixing pot.
When you compress on the fly, you have to completely decompress all the files in an archive and recompress it when you're done. Hence it's all random transfers for the most part.
It's not a sequential transfer. Plus it's already precompressed data. Nothing SandForce can do about it. SandForce, Samsung, it's not going to make a difference.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
There is less write cycle since the file is smaller! The increase is in the time needed to compress the file before writing to the SSD. Therefore Using compression lengthens the life of the SSD since u are writing less since the files are smaller!
The author must have been sleepy...
The above comment shows a lack of reading and/or comprehension skills!?!?!?!? Wot the...??? League of Legends
The question was already asked and answered in previous comments! I can't think of what to put in this sentence. Therefore Using compression can potentially shorten the life of the SSD since u are potentially writing more [see above comments]!
The poster must have been stupid...
Thats just my opinion, just to check that Microsoft is right about that performance issue with NTFS.
(Excuse my english).
I did use file compression on it, but only on the AppData and ProgramData folders, because those guys suck and can just randomly start becoming monstrously huge. Every now and then I go in there and find some programs like to put a couple gigs in there for no good reason (Adobe Premiere stored several movie files like wtf, and Code Master games (F1 2010, Dirt 3) like to store 1gb replays in there).
However, Black Friday gave me a great opportunity, so I bought a 120gb Corsair Fore Series GT for $110 off (~$150)! This drive is strickly for my games... damn it's nice. Skyrim boots up and loads locations in seconds.
"Like other SandForce controllers, the SF-2281 features a technology called DuraWrite, which uses data compression to lower write amplification and extend the life of the drive by reducing the number of program-erase cycles. This data compression also plays a big part in the controller's performance. The more the data can be compressed, the faster an SSD like the HyperX is able to read and write."
from:
http://cdrlabs.com/Reviews/kingston-hyperx-120gb-solid-state-drive/All-Pages.html
You might try the following:
1) Take your SSD with the system partition and connect it to another computer that already has a bootable drive.
2) Boot into Windows on that other computer, go to the attached SSD, and re-compress the system folder as well as any contents in Program Files and Program Files (x86) that were not compressed already.
3) Put the SSD back into your test machine, re-evaluate the compression ratios, and re-test boot times, shutdown times, and various other system tests.