Are video files eating up my harddrive?

[wobble2]

PLEASE CAN ANY ONE HELP ME
I've just got into converting video files such as Divx,Xvid,mpeg,avi, etc mainly splitting these so that they fit two cd-r's in Vcd format for my Dvd player. These files are all saved to my 120G HDD which is split into 3 ( 50G,50G,20G) I have only used 28g of the main C Drive whic is 50G. However should I compress these files to maintain performance? If so, can I just us Xp's compression!.
Also do I need to Defrag more often, as when I recently done this, alot of the fragments were movie files.
LAST Question Does Defragging often, damage your HDD
Thankyou
very much
Wobble2
PS/ Please be gentle
(NEWBIE)

[flaninacupboard]

compressing the files will make it slower for your hard drive to access them, and you wil gain little hard drive space, as MPEG files are already very dense in data. read up on how winzip and drivespace style compression works and you'll see what i mean.
if you have the time to run defragging, go for it, but unless you're capturing (which i don't think you are) it's not a priority.
running defrag a lot may shorten the life of your HDD, but i mean running a defrag, moving a load of files and then running defrag again. if you're running it once a week, or even every other night, you've no worries.

[K2]

I don't recommend disk compression.
flaninacupboard explained it well.

I do recommend you use NTFS if you want to get the best disk usage from you XP system. Most system are not formatted this why as default.

[wobble2]

Thanks everyone!,
I might start saving the mpeg files to my 'D' Drive 50Gb (backup) Which is almost empty and leaving drive 'C' free for other stuff!
Will my computer slow down if i decide to keep most of these files on my HDD?
Where do I post Video related stuff, like editing?
Once more, many thanks for your time - flaninacupboard, K2
Oh, i almost forgot - K2, Iam already using NFTS.