From: David Ross (ross_at_math.hawaii.edu)
Date: Sat Jun 07 1997 - 04:04:24 EDT
> >BTW, if you're not using data compression, you can save lots of bytes in
> >W95 by using it.
>
> Compression also slows down the system. This may or may not be important to you, depending on your
> applications.
This ranges from somewhat true to totally false, depending on the
situation. During compression/decompression the CPU *is* burdened with
extra processing; however, (1) this is much worse for compression than
decompression, and for big files (like executables ) the former is only
done once, and (2) the reduction in data to be transferred to/from the
drive speeds overall processing, especially when the CPU is relatively
fast and the drive is relatively slow. I use Superstore under DOS/W3.1 on a
desktop, and find that data access on my compressed partition is somewhat
faster than on the uncompressed partition. I have a compressed virtual
disk using Win95OSR2's compression on my TP560, and it is comparable in
speed to the uncompressed drive. I used a similar arrangement on my
701, and found the compressed drive to be only marginally slower than
the uncompressed one (and I was using maximum compression on that
drive).
- David
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