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There are filesystems that transparently compress large text files. They're not in common use because CPU/disk IO is more expensive than disk space, and filesys

There are filesystems that transparently compress large text files. They're not in common use because CPU/disk IO is more expensive than disk space, and filesystem compression has fairly low yield on a standard desktop.

floatboth 10y ago
Compression also means less disk I/O, not just space. I use ZFS and NTFS compression on all the things. For example, ~/.android on my desktop: "Size 1.49 GB, Size on disk 293 MB". Not everything compresses as nicely but in general you can save a lot of space on a desktop.
- Filligree 10y ago
  How do you check that for a single directory? I only know how to check for a filesystem or pool.
  - floatboth 10y ago
    Yeah I don't know how to check that on ZFS. That result was from NTFS on Windows, I thought the phrase "Size on disk" was enough for everyone to tell it's Windows :D
catdog 10y ago
It's gaining popularity in modern file systems as CPUs paired with fast compression algorithms like lz4 or lzo are generally fast enough nowadays to easily outperform most common storage devices. Saving space also means you need to read or write less form/to the often "slow" medium which makes things faster.