Compression
Compression is an NTFS attribute of files and folders. This increases the amount of free hard disk space by reducing the size of the files or folders. Compressing files and folders on a computer allows users to store more data on your computer's hard drive. NTFS supports compression on volumes, folders and the files that are compressed on an NTFS volume. A user can read a compressed file located on an NTFS volume without decompressing it. The file is decompressed automatically as soon as the file read process starts. On a volume that is about to run out of space, shows the compression to be a very effective means to increase the e
mpty space on your hard disk, and thus the management of disk space. A user can control the compression attributes of files or folders individually.
To enable compression on a file, folder or a complete NTFS volume, a user has to follow the steps below:
Right click on volume, file or folder and choose Properties.
On the General tab page in the Properties dialog box for file, folder or volume, click on the Advanced button.
In the Advanced Attributes dialog box, select the Compress contents to save disk space check box on the Compress or Encrypt attributes section, and click the OK button.
Moving and copying compressed files and folders: When a user move or copy the compressed files and folders in Windows, these files and folders affected in the following way:
When files and folders are moved within the NTFS volume compression attribute remains the same in its new location, whatever status the destination folder (ie whether it is compressed or uncompressed).
When files and folders are copied in the same volume from one place to another, the original compression attribute lost, and the files will inherit the attributes of the new parent folder (destination).
When files and folders are copied or transferred to another volume, the compression attribute is lost and the files or folders inherit properties of the destination folder.
Copying or moving compressed files and folders from one NTFS volume to FAT or FAT32 volume do not support compression because FAT or FAT32 does not support compression of files or folders.
Windows XP supports a new feature called Compressed (zipped) folder. This feature can be used in quantities of either FAT or NTFS file system, or both. The compressed (zipped) folder can be easily shared with other users, although they are not running Windows XP Professional, or using a drive formatted with NTFS file system.
Supporting File Encryption
File encryption is a file attribute that allows a user to protect files and folders. It is a way to make data unreadable to protect it from unauthorized users, especially in network transmission. Windows XP Professional allows the user to protect files and folders using the Encrypting File System (EFS). EFS codes a file in a way that a user can not read file data, even if he gets access to the file. Only an authorized user can read the file. When an unauthorized user tries to access an EFS encrypted resource, the user receives Access Denied message. EFS implementation has two limitations. Firstly, an EFS encryption only on volumes formatted as NTFS, and secondly, a user can not use EFS to encrypt a file has been compressed using NTFS compression. By default, Windows XP, the names of encrypted files with a green color. A user can also change color as per his requirements.
Managing disk quotas
Disk quota is a very efficient disk management in Windows XP Professional. Administrators on NTFS formatted volumes can use this feature. It allows administrators to restrict or determine the amount of disk space to multiple users on an NTFS volume. Disk quotas provide system administrators with a powerful tool for managing storage growth. Administrators can set both soft and hard limits, i.e. when a user exceeds a warning level (soft limit), an event is logged: when a user exceeds the hard limit, they receive an Out of Disk error. Disk quotas apply to all quantities. It can not be configured on a folder-by-folder basis. When a user meets or exceeds the quota, he will have to delete files to create empty space, transfer ownership of some of his files to other users or ask administrator to give more disk space. Compression does not work when the limit is exceeded. Simply by compressing some folders, a user can not increase the available disk space in his allotted quota.
Managing security
Windows XP provides an excellent way to ensure the shared files and folders across a network of proper allocation of the default NTFS permissions. There are six basic NTFS folder permissions and NTFS permissions five fundamental. Beyond these standard permissions, an NTFS formatted volume also offers advanced file and folder permissions that an administrator can assign a more specific way. System or network administrators in both files and folders can use all these permits. Whole assigned standard, and advanced permissions can be found on the Security tab page of File's and folder's Properties dialog box.
Another way to handle security is to verify permission inheritance. When an administrator assigns some NTFS permissions on a folder, all files and subfolders in the parent folder will automatically inherit the parent folder permissions. This is called permission inheritance. An administrator can stop this inheritance either at the parent level or child level by setting the Security tab page of the parent folder's dialog box. Therefore, Windows XP with the NTFS-formatted volume provides a very effective way to manage files and directories both local as well as in a network environment.
