Which is best option? Should I compress the drive to save space and index drive for searching.?

Question

Should I leave the boxes next to these options check or unchecked them?

Answer 1

Uncheck the compress option, check the indexing service.

Compression takes a lot of time (depending on your computer hardware configuration), i would suggest not to compress instead get a good 500GB (or higher) SATA 3.0 HDD like velociraptor. Another reason is that once you have compressed the files on your HDD, decompression will still take time thereby affecting your system's performance.

Checking indexing service will increase system's performance in searching files and folders, when your computer is idle the indexing service automatically write indexes and records various files on your computer, it does not consume space, nor too much memory, instead it increases the performance.

Answer 2

leave as is

Answer 3

If you want to have more space on your Hard Drive, it is best if you would first delete/uninstall files that you are not using anymore.  Also, you can try Defragmenting your HD to free up space.

Answer 4

Compressing means your computer will subjectively run slower.  It takes CPU time to compress and decompress things.  Additionally, the disk compression in Windows is not very effective.  (It doesn't compress well.)

Indexing will also take CPU time, but for the duration of indexing.  If you have a lot of data, this can potentially take days.

If you are running low on disk space, the best solution is to archive things you no longer use or access often.  The best compression program (in terms of saving the most space) is 7zip.  It also happens to be free.

If you have a bit of spare money, an even -better- solution is to get an additional drive for your computer.  Disks are getting dirt cheap.  (1TB of storage can be had for less than $200.)