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If I need to store, say, a 5gb file on a cloud file storage location (e.g., aws s3 bucket), will zipping the file reduce the cost / latency when people download it?

Obviously zipping a file reduces the storage size, but my specific question is:

  • Do webservers compress data automatically before sending to another computer?
  • If so, does zipping a file reduce transmission cost beyond anything the webserver is already doing?
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Does zipping files reduce data transmission speed / costs?

Probably yes.

Do webservers compress data automatically before sending to another computer?

Most do yes, but won't achieve anything for pre-compressed downloads.

If so, does zipping a file reduce transmission cost beyond anything the webserver is already doing?

Yes as it means you're storing less in the cloud's storage, also uploads will be quicker, and if you're paying for outgoing transfers then it'll be smaller too.

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  • Got it; thank you for the response! Do you have any intuition as to why web servers don't just zip everything (or some equivalent file compression) before transmitting it by default? My guess would be that the computational cost of the compression algorithm outweigh the cost of data transmission most of the time, but I could be off here.
    – Matt
    Feb 21 at 22:10
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    @matt - they often do, it's a configurable thing for whatever web server engine you're using - there are various thresholds you can set to match your actual workload - it'll all be listed in the manual for whichever engine you choose.
    – Chopper3
    Feb 22 at 10:10

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