Usable compressed folder.

[NeHoMaR]

Hi, I am looking for a software that let me compress a folder keeping the folder usable, like NTFS compression but using bigger compression like 7zip. I don't care about speed, cpu, or whatever, it's just for storing in a normal folder, transparent, with normal I mean all, edit files, even run programs inside. I know Windows include the zip folder, I don't really like it, plus I want 7z compression level. Don't tell me to buy hard disk, I already have 8TB :^)

[xendrome]

It does sound like you are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.... If that's the case, I'm not sure why anyone would waste their time researching this for you. What exactly are you trying to accomplish by doing this?

[+BudMan MVC]

What are you storing that is eating up 8TB?  Are they even compressible.. Video files for example don't compress very well.  7zip up a mp4 and see what I mean.

 

Here I took a home movie mp4, 7z it -- takes up more space

 

[sc302 Veteran]

If you have 8tb of space used up, you want to compress it...I am guessing you are trying to double your space for either videos or mp3s which are already compressed...compressing compressed files dont really compress very well (which is possibly why you are looking at 7zip type of compression.  you want to be able to use it on the fly (which 7 zip doesn't really do, it uncompresses it prior to use) and you want it in the smallest possible file so you can increase your storage.  Yea, going to say buy more storage on this one.

[+BudMan MVC]

What exactly is the meat of your storage.. If video maybe choosing a different format, using lower bitrate, etc... There are lots of ways to make video files smaller.  Same goes for audio files..

 

Really need some details of what your storing and then maybe we can come up with something to use up less space, other than buying more space or some sort of compression.  You mention ntfs compression - have you tried that, how well is that working for you

[NeHoMaR]

I have like 3TB of 7zip files, using maximum compression possible, of things I don't use too much but don't want to delete, or backups. Being able to see that 7z files as normal folders should be a lot easier and faster to manage that files. I want this to be as easy as ntfs compression.

 

By the way, I never said a thing about compressing videos or music, I know it's useless to use compression in that files.

[xendrome]

Just buy an extra HDD or two and store your archived data on those, get an external USB SATA cable just to hook them up when you need to access the data. It's going to be much easier and faster to do this.

[NeHoMaR]

  On 23/04/2015 at 21:57, xendrome said:

Just buy an extra HDD or two and store your archived data on those, get an external USB SATA cable just to hook them up when you need to access the data. It's going to be much easier and faster to do this.

Buying hardware is indeed a perfect solution, but I am asking for software.

[+BudMan MVC]

"I have like 3TB of 7zip files"

 

Of what??  Where are the backups of this stuff you don't want to get rid of? All disks DIE!! Other than Video/Pictures/Music I can not fathom using up 3TB of disk space to be honest.

 

Sounds like someone is a hoarder of useless junk.. What do you have your zipped up copy of your windows 9x floppy images?

 

Also I am curious how much compression and therefor space your actually saving?? 

[yxz]

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-shaves-off-gigabytes-with-selective-system-file-compression/

  Quote

Windows 10 ...

To enable high performance decompression, Microsoft has added a number of new compression algorithms to the NTFS filesystem that are designed for compressing executable files.

These all appear to be variants of algorithms already well used and tested in other Windows software; three are variants of the "Xpress" algorithm used for hibernation files, Windows Updates, and the Windows Imaging Format (WIM) files used by the Windows installer.

The fourth algorithm, LZX, is used in Microsoft's CAB archives, and it's also an option for WIM. The different algorithms each offer different size/space trade-offs. These join the LZNT1 algorithm that's more suitable for general data compression.

 

compression of mpv.exe (http://mpv.srsfckn.biz/mpv-x86_64-20150411.7z)

			bytes
mpv.exe: 		30694912

ntfs compression
mpv.lznt1.exe:		20465664
mpv.XPRESS4K.exe:	17729536
mpv.XPRESS8K.exe:	16544768
mpv.XPRESS16K.exe:	15900160
mpv.LZX.exe:		13231616

archive file
mpv.exe.zip:		13730235
mpv.exe.7z:		10581947

[NeHoMaR]

That's interesting, Win10 is going to improve NTFS compression? I see it's only for exes. Why the hell they don't added that algorithm option to all data compression? only to exes? are not exes exactly the ones that should have the faster decompression? so they added something to compress exes more? what the hell?

[ShadeOfBlue]

What you are asking for is not technically possible.

There are only two main choices, and you have listed them already. You can have:
1) great compression, but making changes to individual files means recompressing everything
2) not so great compression, and making changes to individual files is easy

Compression algorithms work by searching for repetition or patterns in the file you wish to compress. By making note of and removing these redundancies, the compressed file can be made smaller than the original.

 

But what if you are compressing many files and there are parts of different files that are identical? Many compression algorithms search for exactly that (e.g. 7-Zip). That's one big reason why they compress so well.

So yes, 7z folder support could be added to Windows, but... each time you changed/added a file, the entire folder would have to be processed again to continue getting the same level of compression. It would be little different from just using 7-Zip itself (or any other compression app).

 

So why is Windows able to access zip files as though they were folders? Because zip files compress each file separately (ignoring all the other files), and they can therefore be extracted/added individually without the need to recreate the whole archive. NTFS compression works in a similar way, but unlike zip folders, it isn't necessary for it to make an uncompressed copy of the file on the disk when you try to read from it.

 

Bottom line: By the time you improve a compression algorithm enough to be as good as 7z, it becomes far too slow for your desired use.

 

 

  On 24/04/2015 at 21:40, NeHoMaR said:

That's interesting, Win10 is going to improve NTFS compression? I see it's only for exes. Why the hell they don't added that algorithm option to all data compression? only to exes? are not exes exactly the ones that should have the faster decompression? so they added something to compress exes more? what the hell?

 

They named the feature after its intended use, but you can use it for anything. It decompresses quickly, but it compresses slower than the normal NTFS compression, so it's recommended for things that don't have to be changed often. You will also notice in the data listed by yxz that even in it's highest (and slowest) compression mode, the amount of compression is closer to zip than it is to 7z.