Find a reliable tool to shrink your Windows 10 installation and free up space.
Find a reliable tool to shrink your Windows 10 installation and free up space.
I own two 12TB HDDs for storing my Blu-Ray copies. All discs are in .mkv format and were ripped without compression. Both drives are nearing capacity, so I’m hesitant about upgrading just yet. If I enable full drive compression via the settings, what impact might it have on video quality? Could artifacts appear? If I run full disk compression and it doesn’t meet expectations, can I revert to the original files easily? Are there any playback problems? From what I understand, Windows should decompress files automatically when accessed. This should mainly affect loading times, possibly causing brief buffering during playback. Updated March 22, 2022 by TheBobatronT9000
Are you certain the mkvs are not compressed? Blu-ray videos and most videos are already compressed using h.264/h.265, so filesystem compression won’t make much difference. An uncompressed video would be larger than a Blue Ray drive. If you’re compressing the video, codecs will achieve better results than file compression in NTFS.
It will require several days to complete, which may lower the processing speed. If your input is a video that’s already compressed, it won’t improve performance and might even slow things down further.
disk compression operates quite differently from video compression. it essentially packages your entire hard drive into a single compressed archive—though technically it’s more like a zip file. this method employs efficient algorithms to store data compactly and reverses them when needed for retrieval. unlike lossy formats, it doesn’t discard any information, so it preserves all original details. however, it offers minimal advantage for certain file types such as video, which often suffer from visible artifacts or color shifts. while compression can significantly reduce file size, its lossless nature makes it ideal mainly for images and audio, where precise data isn’t critical. in contrast, video compression typically uses lossy techniques, sacrificing some quality to achieve smaller sizes, resulting in noticeable visual or audio degradation. this trade-off means video files usually become much larger, whereas disk compression focuses on simplicity and fidelity without compromising too much on size.
In general, squeezing drives is a very risky move, since a single bad byte anywhere can ruin the whole unit. I remember those days with drive space and double space concepts—nowadays folder compression helps a bit. Just be cautious: avoid compressing important files, and steer clear of uncompressible types like video files in h264/h265, audio formats such as mp3/aac, or compressed archives like zip/rar. Stick to smaller, temporary files that aren’t huge. Compressing big files or entire disks can cause total loss—especially if errors occur or the system fails, which is true even with full disk encryption. As for what’s safe, think of raw wav files you use from libraries without converting them to flac; those are usually fine.
Using MakeMKV provides a detailed inventory of files and their sizes on the drive, with dropdown options for each item. For trimming MKV files, you might find a suitable tool like HandBrake or FFmpeg helpful. These allow you to adjust audio and subtitle settings without re-rippling entire collections. This way you can edit only the files you already own, keeping your process simple and manageable.
The videos are already compressed, so further compression won't reduce their size.
Great, all your questions were addressed and I appreciate it.