VOGONS


First post, by Harry Potter

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Hi! On my Win98SE tower at my mother's house, I have a lot of floppies compressed using DriveSpace, but DriveSpace is slow and has a poor compression ratio. I'm working on my own compression techniques, but they're nowhere near ready to use yet. 🙁 I'm looking for a better disk compression program that's better. Where can I find it?

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 2 of 11, by igully

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I have never used "Stacker" which was its greatest competitor back then.

I suggest you take a look at it.

In any case, drive compression was always a double edged sword where you always traded speed for storage space.
To aid in this speed issue, some expansion cards to aid in compression duties were released, but were never a success for one reason or the other.

Eventually storage prices fell enough that drive compression did not make any sense commercially.

You may still however find drive compression has some niche segments nowadays.

Reply 3 of 11, by Harry Potter

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I actually had Stacker on an old Win98SE tower, but it was incompatible with Windows 98.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 4 of 11, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

The fact you said floppies scares me! 1 bad sector and that's EVERYTHING lost. at least uncompressed you may be able to copy 1/2 the files before the good old message "error reading drive A" 😜

Is this just for fun or is the 1.44MB limit really causing issues?
If it's for fun then fair enough!
If it's for file transfers Your better off using something else like Networking, CD's, etc

Reply 5 of 11, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
igully wrote on 2024-12-22, 16:38:

In any case, drive compression was always a double edged sword where you always traded speed for storage space.
To aid in this speed issue, some expansion cards to aid in compression duties were released, but were never a success for one reason or the other.

Yes, but it depends. An XT with a V20 processor can reach better performance on an MFM/RLL drive when compression is used.
Factors like bus passthrough throughput and interleave factor can be more of a bottle neck than the compression algorithm.

I've tried it on an XT with Double Space from MS-DOS 6.20. Performance wasn't noticeable worse.
Saving was faster sometimes, even.

Then there's another thing. The waste of FAT allocation units.
On FAT16, each file takes up a certain minimum space. Even if it's an empty text file.

Now, when drive compression is used, all those small files are being bundled, essentially.
The FAT is de-cluttered a lot, thus. The storage capacity is now rather used for actual data.

PS: The Stacker co-processor boards for ISA bus were cool! 😁
I wished I had one. Wonder if they can ve rebuild. It's certainly a novelty item to have.

Edit: Found an advertisement.

Attachments

  • stac-card.jpg
    Filename
    stac-card.jpg
    File size
    534.6 KiB
    Views
    254 views
    File comment
    https://virtuallyfun.com/2011/07/12/stac-electronics-stacker-for-os2fd/
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 6 of 11, by Harry Potter

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

chinny22: The floppies are actually for fun, but there's something I want to do with them when I succeed with better file compression. 😀 BTW, depending on where they are, a bad sector won't break the whole disk, and you should be able to retrieve most of its data.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 7 of 11, by Grzyb

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

It's safe bet that arrival of Double Space/Drive Space quickly killed off all the competition.
Anyway, the last version of Stacker was 4.1, from 1995.

Zaglądali do kufrów, zaglądali do waliz, nie zajrzeli do dupy - tam miałem klimatyzm.

Reply 8 of 11, by megatron-uk

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Harry Potter wrote on 2024-12-23, 11:27:

chinny22: The floppies are actually for fun, but there's something I want to do with them when I succeed with better file compression. 😀 BTW, depending on where they are, a bad sector won't break the whole disk, and you should be able to retrieve most of its data.

False.

Which string of bytes was impacted by that single sector error? Was it the (compressed) FAT? What does that (now broken) sequence of bytes actually decode to now that you have lost the (beginning/ middle/end) of the sequence?

Poke one sector sized hole in a uncompressed filesystem, directory index or FAT and you have a good chance of getting pretty much everything else back from the media. Not so with a compressed file/device/filesystem.

The possibility of a single sector error causing a complete loss of data is statistically far great than an uncompressed filesystem.

I really don't understand why you persist with all of this compressed floppy business. It wasn't a good idea back then, and it certainly didn't get any better with decades old media that you are inevitably now using.

My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net

Reply 9 of 11, by Babasha

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Grzyb wrote on 2024-12-23, 11:48:

It's safe bet that arrival of Double Space/Drive Space quickly killed off all the competition.
Anyway, the last version of Stacker was 4.1, from 1995.

DriveSpace3 (Win95OSR2 or Win98) get the key feature of Stacker 4 (better compression ratio and recompression during optimization) - i think MS just license this features from Stac Inc.

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉

Reply 10 of 11, by Harry Potter

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'm currently working on file compression, and if I succeed, I can compress my floppies much better than I'm doing right now.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 11 of 11, by Babasha

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Harry Potter wrote on 2024-12-23, 15:37:

I'm currently working on file compression, and if I succeed, I can compress my floppies much better than I'm doing right now.

I hope we will see your complete product... until thermal collapse of the universe (joke)

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉