A type of
data compression that works by storing compressed versions of
files on the
hard disk. A disk compression
utility sits between the
operating system and the
disk drive. Whenever the operating system attempts to
save a file to disk, the utility intercepts it and compresses it. Likewise, when the operating system attempts to
open a file, the disk compression utility intercepts the file, decompresses it, and then passes it to the operating system. Because all
applications access files through the operating system, disk compression utilities work with all applications. The entire process is
transparent to the user, though opening and closing files may take a little longer. On the other hand, a disk compression utility can double the amount of disk space available.
Windows comes with a built-in disk compression utility called DriveSpace. You can also purchase third-party disk compression utilities for Windows and other operating systems.
