All software has bugs...even Windows!
MagicRAR Drive Press uses safe, proven NTFS compression to increase your disk capacity.
But it outperforms Windows significantly! How is this possible, since both use NTFS compression?
It's a bug in the Windows drive conversion routine, which misses files that are completely safe to compress. First introduced in the problematic Windows Vista version, this bug renders a significant portion of your hard disks incompressible - even on the newer Windows 7 and Windows 8 versions! Take a look at the evidence we have collected below and see for yourself how MagicRAR Drive Press exceeds Windows's own compression, while using time-tested, proven, and completely safe, reversible NTFS compression as its underlying storage medium. And because Drive Press is multi-core and SSD capable, it will also convert your drives in a fraction of the time it would take Windows to do so. More storage and faster processing - now that's a win-win proposition!-http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EL3b2dEehRkJ:howtocompressfiles.org/drive-press.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
I'd only use something like this as a last resort or on a device I cared nothing about if it exploded or got stolen tomorrow morning. For anything more important than that, I'd buy additional storage before doing anything like this. I also avoid compression as much as practically possible. But I am admittedly more than slightly paranoid about such things.-superboyac (December 09, 2012, 11:56 PM)
This is the amount of free space available on a brand-new Windows 8 Professional computer.
Windows will compress this drive when you check the "Compress this drive" box.
System software just scares me... If it conks out, god only knows what can happen. I prefer to rely on the basics and some very well trusted tools that have been vetted over and over again. e.g. SysInternals.I wouldn't label MagicRAR as "system software" - from their marketing fluff, I'd conclude that the developers aren't too skilled, and are simply using the built-in NTFS compression (calling DeviceIoControl with FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION). That's the same thing that happens if you enable compression on the file properties dialog box.-Renegade (December 10, 2012, 09:43 AM)
My guess (just a gut feeling, not verified) is that their drive compression boasting is something along the lines of... when selecting "Compress this drive to save disk space", Windows doesn't select every file and folder by default (I'd guess it skips %WinDir% and other locations), whereas MagicRAR probably goes gung-ho on the entire partition.-f0dder (December 10, 2012, 03:41 AM)
I've just heard about a utility that claims to increase the efficiency of Windows's native NTFS compression. I'm mildly interested in this because I have a fair bit of stuff that can be usefully compressed (such as C header files and libraries - they're write once, compressible, and take up a lot of space if you have many compilers/SDKs/toolkits).
- http://www.magicrar.com/drive-press.html
I'm curious about this software because of some of the claims made on an older site by the vendor:All software has bugs...even Windows!
MagicRAR Drive Press uses safe, proven NTFS compression to increase your disk capacity.
But it outperforms Windows significantly! How is this possible, since both use NTFS compression?
It's a bug in the Windows drive conversion routine, which misses files that are completely safe to compress. First introduced in the problematic Windows Vista version, this bug renders a significant portion of your hard disks incompressible - even on the newer Windows 7 and Windows 8 versions! Take a look at the evidence we have collected below and see for yourself how MagicRAR Drive Press exceeds Windows's own compression, while using time-tested, proven, and completely safe, reversible NTFS compression as its underlying storage medium. And because Drive Press is multi-core and SSD capable, it will also convert your drives in a fraction of the time it would take Windows to do so. More storage and faster processing - now that's a win-win proposition!-http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EL3b2dEehRkJ:howtocompressfiles.org/drive-press.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
This kind of feels like either snake-oil or maybe a registry setting that can be set without any special software. But I'd like to know more.
Does anyone have any experience with this software?
Any better information on how it works or what the mentioned bug in the Windows drive compression routine is?-mwb1100 (December 09, 2012, 10:22 PM)
1. The Product Name
Unfortunately, the domains magiczip and zipmagic were both taken. So was rarmagic, but magicrar was available. Since the product's shell namespace integration is unique, there was no clearer way to communicate this than to append or prepend the phrase "magic" to one of the most commonly recognized archive formats. There are countless utilities with the name ZIP, and by your reasoning you should go and flame them as well for cashing in on the "ZIP brand".-simonking (January 07, 2013, 01:30 PM)
Looking over this thread, it seems like the people who commented were mostly regulars (1k+ posts) and certainly not to my knowledge affiliated with any "competitors". What you have seen here, I think, is the gut reaction of people who have been working with software for a long time, and who have seen a terrible lot of "bootstrap sites" claiming to do "magic" .-Jibz
10. Conclusion
You are free to drink the kool-aid of the competition and attack MagicRAR with FUD. The fact remains that none of you have even bothered to try the software, in addition to the many factual inaccuracies in your posts above which I have ripped apart to shreds above. We all at MagicRAR have worked very hard to bring you genuine innovation - but apparently you are so brainwashed by the existing brands which have been selling you essentially the same tools for over a decade, that you cannot possibly conceive of actually having something better - save recognize when it is actually delivered.
You can trust me when I say, any FUD, or unwarranted bashing of a company, is not, has never been, and never will be, tolerated here at DonationCoder.com-Stephen66515 (January 07, 2013, 03:30 PM)
You can trust me when I say, any FUD, or unwarranted bashing of a company, is not, has never been, and never will be, tolerated here at DonationCoder.com-Stephen66515 (January 07, 2013, 03:30 PM)
That's nice of you to make an effort, but clearly you are failing. Simply based on the name "magic" a significant number of your senior posters have ridiculed a terrific piece of engineering without even bothering to fire up VMware for it, by their own admitted paranoia.
The poster f0dder continues to spread technical falsehoods in a desperate effort to protect his or her continuing strawman arguments. Are you seriously surprised that this kind of attitude draws a strong reaction? What were you thinking?
I have privately emailed mauser that it is not a reasonable expectation for any poster here to ask MagicRAR to reveal any of our intellectual property - whether it has been patented or not - as these are our trade secrets. I find it necessary to reiterate that claim here.
If you have an open mind and are actually willing to try the software and offer feedback to help make it better, I would be delighted to receive your input. Otherwise, my job here is done.-simonking (January 07, 2013, 04:16 PM)
The poster f0dder continues to spread technical falsehoods in a desperate effort to protect his or her continuing strawman arguments. Are you seriously surprised that this kind of attitude draws a strong reaction? What were you thinking?Move along, people, nothing to see here - snake-oil salesman passing through.
I have privately emailed mauser that it is not a reasonable expectation for any poster here to ask MagicRAR to reveal any of our intellectual property - whether it has been patented or not - as these are our trade secrets. I find it necessary to reiterate that claim here.-simonking (January 07, 2013, 04:16 PM)
I've posted on the other thread too, but I just wanted to add here that I do applaud this as a positive and constructive step.I'd rather see some of the points put forth in this thread be answered, instead of met with aggressive hand-waving.-mouser (January 10, 2013, 01:33 PM)
By the way. coming onto this forum, with the attitude "We are awesome and don't need to answer to you"
You're going to have a bad time.-Stephen66515
Cranio, I will PM you in regards to this. I do not wish this topic to get de-railed again.
(I will be changing my forum sig, to state, that all my posts, and comments, are my own personal opinion)-Stephen66515 (January 11, 2013, 09:42 PM)
I don't want that thread getting out of hand again.</Unofficial Personal Statement>
I make no intention to speak on behalf of DonationCoder as a whole...people here have loud enough voices to speak for themselves.
I chose to opt-out of that discussion after discussing with mouser, my motivations for posting what I posted, of which, he forwarded to the Developer (Or sales guy...dunno which he was to be honest.) - and which resulted in an amicable result where he offered a free trial of his software so people could try it out.
If you noticed, mouser posted that he wanted to get the thread back on track, and I had already pointed out that I had no intention of posting there again, so, I didn't really appreciate having to go back there, especially for this purpose.-Stephen66515
As you have now seen for yourself, none of our claims are false and the product works exactly as it is being marketed. While I would welcome an apology from you, I happily accept all your time spent researching, as well as your accurate report of your findings, in its stead. Thank you for being open minded!1) you claim Windows is buggy - this is false.-simonking (January 15, 2013, 03:06 AM)
Please note that fragmentation is not an issue for SSDs due to zero impact on random access times throughout the disk.SSDs have vastly better random I/O characteristic than HDDs, but you still incur overhead from fragmentation - claiming anything else is bullshit, and easily verifiable by checking benchmarks of sequential vs. random I/O. I'm not worried about performance, though, but the other problems compression & fragmentation poses for SSDs.-simonking (January 15, 2013, 03:06 AM)
All,
Let's try and remain calm and continue focusing on having a constructive discussion.-Josh (January 15, 2013, 10:13 AM)
^ If the developer doesnt care to respond to the last points made; ignores responses made by the investigator; misrespresents said investegator's research; and makes baseless claims spurious at this stage of discussions - I would say the case is closed.Indeed - I don't have more to add to this thread, the facts are on the table.-tomos (January 15, 2013, 09:09 AM)
^ If the developer doesnt care to respond to the last points made; ignores responses made by the investigator; misrespresents said investegator's research; and makes baseless claims spurious at this stage of discussions - I would say the case is closed.
Anyone who reads the thread at this stage can see enough to decide whether they want to use the product or not.
A Big Thank You to f0dder, for all the brilliant research :up:
:Wizard:-tomos (January 15, 2013, 09:09 AM)
Let's try and remain calm and continue focusing on having a constructive discussion.-Josh (January 15, 2013, 10:13 AM)
Because of that I request that both related threads be locked.Dunno if they need to be locked - they're pretty dead now from my viewpoint.-tomos (January 15, 2013, 01:26 PM)
small100.txt is UNcompressed, 100/100, (MFT resident), 1 fragments
small500.txt is UNcompressed, 500/500, (MFT resident), 1 fragments
small1000.txt is UNcompressed, 1000/1000, 1 fragments
small5000.txt is UNcompressed, 5000/5000, 1 fragments
====================================================
Compressing files in R:\temp\z\
small100.txt 100 : 100 = 1,0 to 1 [OK]
small1000.txt 1000 : 1000 = 1,0 to 1 [OK]
small500.txt 500 : 500 = 1,0 to 1 [OK]
small5000.txt 5000 : 1024 = 4,9 to 1 [OK]
4 files within 1 directories were compressed.
6.600 total bytes of data are stored in 2.624 bytes.
The compression ratio is 2,5 to 1.
====================================================
small100.txt is compressed, 100/100, (MFT resident), 1 fragments
small500.txt is compressed, 500/500, (MFT resident), 1 fragments
small1000.txt is compressed, 1000/1000, 2 fragments
small5000.txt is compressed, 5000/1024, 2 fragments
you will most probably find that MagicRAR Drive Press, due to its low level nature, is the most well tested component of the entire suite. Hunting bugs elsewhere would be a lot more rewarding for you, I promise
[Giveaway] MagicRAR 8.5 The Next-Generation Archiver for Windows FREE for 1 Week (http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/711617-giveaway-magicrar-8-5-next-generation-archiver-windows-free-1-week.html)-NotebookReview.com
Did any of you ever test the program? :-\-Curt (March 17, 2013, 02:51 PM)
Hi Zatronium --
I've spoken to the author of Comprexx and he is in fact teamed up with the MagicRar folks -- so that's why you are noticing that it's the same underlying system. They are created by same author.-mouser (March 17, 2013, 11:19 AM)
latest round of paranoia
For those brave enough to explore beyond the boundaries of their paranoia
Clearly these individuals are very deluded
While I understand that you feel/have the need to address this latest round of discussions, I for one would appreciate it if your posts to do so would stay professional and refrain from utilizing pejoratives.latest round of paranoiaFor those brave enough to explore beyond the boundaries of their paranoiaClearly these individuals are very deluded
None of that was necessary, and indeed, a post without those would have gone a ways towards gaining goodwill. Instead, like many others when negative criticism is levied, the more base manners of defense come to light, including the losing way of debating of attacking the arguer rather than the argument. And like those, no matter what truth may be in your post, your tone turns me away from your product and your company, even if I had need.
That's something that you might want to keep in mind in the future (and there is an edit button on the post if you want to correct such), especially when posting on DC.-wraith808 (March 31, 2013, 03:51 PM)
I am really glad to read that this latest round of paranoia has been deflated by other members of the forum before I became aware of it.-simonking (March 31, 2013, 03:19 PM)
What I'm getting from you is that its OK for people to very unprofessionally attack MagicRAR under the guise of free speech, but it is not OK for MagicRAR to - let us assume unprofessionally for the sake of argument - try to set the record straight and protect its brand and product against completely baseless and demonstrably false accusations. In other words, DC tolerates attacks on products, but does not tolerate attacks on those attackers of products. Why this asymmetry?-simonking (April 01, 2013, 03:20 AM)