To Compress Image, or Not?

Sorry if this is a repetitive post; I tried seach, but it wasn't helpful. My basic question is whether there is any specific benefit to compressing the image (other than saving HD space)? Also, if one chooses to NOT use compression, does that result in the pagefile being imaged as well? Reason I ask is that space saving is no concern for me, & I won't compress the image unless there's another benefit to doing so, and I've read of some issues when restoring an image b/c of no pagefile.

 

Compression is very important when images are stored on DVD or CD disks. Reducing the number of disks by almost half reduces the work and increases the reliability. Similarly, in any case where the space for the images is limited, compression is an advantage. Compression can reduce the time to create an image if the limiting factor is transferring the image. With compression, there are fewer bytes to transfer.

If these limitations don't apply to you, there's not much reason to use compression, but there's no reason not to that I can think of.

 

well the compression algorithms eat system resources and require additional processing overhead to perform. The less compression used, the less time it takes to create the image.

 

You could find that the time taken to write the extra bytes of non or low compression image outways the time your system takes to compress the image. The secret is to find the optimum compromise between disk write performance (not just Burst Data Transfer Rate!) and CPU speed/TI compression algorithm efficiency. I've found that setting TI' compression to "Normal" is a pretty good compromise, other than when trying to cram as much as I can onto the least number of CDs/DVDs.

Regards