Disabling NTFS Compression in Windows 8.1?

Discussion in 'Windows 8' started by ian82, Sep 9, 2013.

  1. ian82

    ian82 MDL Expert

    Mar 7, 2012
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    I have an SSD, is it a good idea to disable NTFS Compression in Windows 8.1 through the registry?

    What about other tweaks such as disable NTFS last access update and enable large system cache?

    I don't know why Microsoft still doesn't enable the large system cache on today's modern OSes knowing that most new laptops come with high end CPUs?

    please shed some light on this

    thanks
     
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  2. murphy78

    murphy78 MDL DISM Enthusiast

    Nov 18, 2012
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    I don't know about compression issues.
    On the large system cache, I wouldn't recommend it.
    Win8.1 already uses a few gigabytes of cache for the file system.
    Back when I tested it on Win8.0, the large system cache just slowed down startup/shutdown.
    It didn't help overall system speed at all.
    The idea is that it would load more into memory, but for win8.0 it didn't seem to do that. I don't know exactly what it does, but it's not beneficial.
     
  3. Enigma256

    Enigma256 MDL Senior Member

    Jan 17, 2011
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    Don't disable compression. There is no benefit to it (in fact, if you're on a SSD, it's a good thing).

    NTFS last access is disabled by default. No need to touch it.

    No need to touch the cache settings, either. The system disk cache has no adverse effect on drive performance or life and makes good use of excess RAM.

    I do like to set the Superfetch service from auto-start to manual start in the services management panel, since that's an active cache and thus incurs extra costs that for very little benefit (on a SSD).
     
  4. ian82

    ian82 MDL Expert

    Mar 7, 2012
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    thanks a LOT for this tip guys! I used to always enable large system cache thinking it was good and disable compression! much appreciated
     
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  5. SpeedDream

    SpeedDream MDL Addicted

    Feb 20, 2012
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    when you install if you format
    8kb clusters: I.e."format /q /fs:ntfs /a:8192 E:" you make big clusters, then no compression anymore, even in system files:D.
    have a good one
     
  6. Thvle

    Thvle MDL Member

    Oct 7, 2012
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    NTFS compression use CPU and more use of SSD/HDD...
     
  7. Thvle

    Thvle MDL Member

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    What is the proper format for a SSD? (for correctly align)
     
  8. Thvle

    Thvle MDL Member

    Oct 7, 2012
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    Yes, I would like to know what are the steps to format the SSD properly and align it with the program that you said you use :) I have understood according must align to 4K, not¿? Regards :)
     
  9. murphy78

    murphy78 MDL DISM Enthusiast

    Nov 18, 2012
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    I'm interested in this as well. I see often some diskpart txt imports with offsets and such and I have no idea what to put, or to simply omit those things.
    If anyone could come up with some sort of disk partitioning guide that would be super helpful.
     
  10. murphy78

    murphy78 MDL DISM Enthusiast

    Nov 18, 2012
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    I explained in more detail in my PM response, but in general it would be really nice to know exactly how to partition using what commands, and why.
    WinVista uses 1 partition (offset? shrug dunno)
    Win7/2008 uses 2 partitions (100mb and rest of hd; offsets? shrug)
    Server 2011 home/sbs-standard/sbs-essentials uses 3 partitions (100mb, 50GB, rest of hd IIRC, could be off a little. Offsets? shrug)
    Server 2011 multipoint uses 2 partitions (100mb and rest of hd; offsets? shrug)
    win8/2012 uses 2 partitions (300mb and rest of hd; offsets? shrug)
    Win8.1/2012r2 uses 2 partitions (350mb and rest of hd; again offsets?)

    My point here is that we sort-of have an idea of how to partition things, but then theres also extra things to consider like GPT partitioning, offsets, etc.
    It's not as simple as running a program. We want to know exactly what numbers to use and why.
     
  11. SpeedDream

    SpeedDream MDL Addicted

    Feb 20, 2012
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    Best way is to use a hard drive format tool for cluster alignment and reset on ssds.
    Being mine just a regular 250gb hard drive (232GB) this is how i got it:
    (in your case prepare the ssd first)

    Started setup, in the last part with the hard drives. press Shift-F10
    find out your hard drive letter (mine setup gave me an H)
    type the "format /q /fs:ntfs /a:8192 G:" then you can use the chkdsk command to verify
    if you see this, then :D no way there's going to be compression:
    Capture.JPG
    it's lazy proof :)

    hope it helped
    good point on doing the alignment on ssd hard drives before trying, I suppose 4kb sector hard drives need alignment before formatting :)
     
  12. OldMX

    OldMX MDL Addicted

    Jul 30, 2009
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    After Vista all MS operating systems use an offset of 1mb or 2048 sectors, for XP an offset of 64kb or 128 sectors is highly recommended
     
  13. Enigma256

    Enigma256 MDL Senior Member

    Jan 17, 2011
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    It uses CPU, but very little by modern standards. Don't compress an entire drive, but it does make sense for locations that are infrequently accessed to be compressed.

    Personally, I leave compression alone. I usually don't manually compress files, and I certainly do not uncompress files that are automatically compressed (if Windows thinks it makes sense for some files to be automatically compressed, I'm not going to argue with that).
     
  14. Heidegger

    Heidegger MDL Member

    Mar 17, 2008
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    Where do you get this nonsense? Windows built-in formatting tools have aligned partitions properly at least since Windows 7 and maybe Vista too.

    As for compression, it's useless for Sandforce drives but might be useful for other SSD technologies, especially if your data is highly compressible and you need the space.