Transparent disk compression?

Question

Level 1

6 points

Transparent disk compression?

I've been reading a lot about compression lately and aware of HFS+ compression feature since Snow Leopard. There are tools out there that make use of it such as acfstool (3rd party) and ditto (Apple's).

However, I am looking for a transparent disk compression feature. In Windows you can mark a disk as "compressed", existing and future files/folders created/copied on this disk is compressed without the user having to do anything, hence transparent.

Is such a feature available on Macs? Either Apple's or 3rd party? I've been looking in App Store, but that has a gazillion results ...

Thanks, Caesar.

Mac Pro 4,1-OTHER, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Dec 1, 2018 9:42 AM

Reply

Answer 1

charliez Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 1, 2018 10:43 AM in response to charliez

I take that back "Clusters" doesn't run reliably enough, some of the compressed files are actually larger than the uncompressed original files.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 1, 2018 9:53 AM in response to charliez

When a reasonable-sized drive cost in excess of US$1000 (over half the cost of the computer) this made a lot more sense. One additional problem added was that if the drive failed, or the software got confused, all your files were lost, with no hope of recovery from the drive itself.

When a 1TB drive today costs less than US$100, this is a waste of time and money, and adds complexity and instability for no substantial benefit. This is a Bad Idea®.

--------

In addition, this brings up the fact that drives do not last forever, and that a second copy of all your files is REQUIRED. It is not a matter of whether your drive will fail, only WHEN its will fail.

What is the date of your most recent backup?

Reply

Answer 3

charliez Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 1, 2018 10:35 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Time Machine backup Nov 19th. My Mac Pro went into a tailspin then until yesterday, just started TM backup again this morning.

I understand the cost of disks these days, but $150 for an 8TB disk still hurts the pocketbook ...

I've found a GUI for HFS+ compression "Clusters", it hasn't been updated since Snow Leopard but seems to work just fine on High Sierra so far (just tried it now).

Reply

Answer 4

Dec 1, 2018 10:53 AM in response to charliez

Apple Introduced its new File system -- Apple File System (APFS) for SSD boot drives in High Sierra and Mojave. At this writing it has excellent support for encryption, but does not YET support file compression. That may be coming, but Apple has not announced any timetable for it.

Worthwhile Utilities for compression, if you choose to use them anyway, should have been updated for High Sierra and Mojave, as an indication that the Developer is paying attention to changes in the File Systems Apple is using.

Reply

Transparent disk compression?

Similar questions