Re: Hardpressed vs. Autoark

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <44sihh$aun@drivel.ics.uci.edu>,
Orion Pax <jlee@clyde.ics.uci.edu> wrote:
>If getting a bigger drive is that simple, why do online services still
>compress archives when they can afford gigs of space?  It's not a question
>of reliability, speed, or space; it's a question of efficiency of storage.

   Well, it does affect speed; you download a compressed file, it'll
most likely take less time than a uncompressed file. This was
definitely more true in the days before compressing protocols for
modems, but I'd think that a compressor program that can look at the
whole file(s), and spend a while finding the best method and params
for compressing can do better than a bit of hardware that only gets to
look at the file in order, etc.

Nathan Mates

-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
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