XP File and Folder Compression Guide
Advantages and Disadvantages of each:
- Zipped folders are good for backup purposes and network transfer due to the higher compression and "single" file architecture.
- NTFS compression is good if you need to save disk space and access the files often, but overhead occurs due to the file needing to be uncompressed before access and /or moving, then recompressed. As such, it is best to not alter or copy compressed files often.
- Zipped folders must be extracted to execute / access the files.
- Moving NTFS compressed files and folders to a "non-NTFS" drive removes the compression.
- Zipped folders works with FAT32, NTFS and most extraction utilities.