Will a csv file load faster in excel when its not ntfs compressed?
Yes, a CSV file will almost always load faster in Excel if it is not NTFS compressed. Here’s a breakdown of why this is the case: How NTFS Compression Works NTFS compression is a feature of the Windows file system. When you compress a file or folder, the operating system saves it in a smaller format on the disk. This is done to save storage space. To do this, the system's processor must perform a real-time operation: it decompresses the data from the disk every time it is read and compresses it again every time it is written. The Impact on Excel When Excel loads a compressed CSV file, the process is not as simple as just reading the data off the disk. The sequence of events is as follows: Read Request: Excel requests the file data from the operating system. CPU Decompression: The NTFS file system intercepts this request and tells the CPU to decompress the data as it's being read from the disk. This adds a processing step that wouldn't exist for an uncompressed file. Data Tr...