Question about archiving files

hello,

I was wondering if anyone knew the best archiving method between these:

.7z
.bh
.bza
.tar bz2
.cab
.jar
.lha
.tar
.tar gz
.zip
.yz1

or are they worth about the same? (I want to archive old system files from an old Pentium 133 ... about 1.5 Gigs)

thx for the help,
Vince

 

.zip -- The most widespread format, and for that reason alone remains popular. It's appeal is maximum portability and zero cost for software (even on Windows). Windows XP even includes native support for the format.

.7z -- This is the OSS format for the OSS program 7-Zip. The program 7-Zip is quite lacking (it's horrible, actually) but the compression algorithm is very good (comprable to .rar) especially for free.

.cab -- A Microsoft archive that uses the LZH(?) compression algorithms. Less efficient than other archive formats

.jar -- This is just a fancy name for a .zip file. Same algorithm (although they can have no compression at all). It is intended only for use with Java executable programs, not as an actual archive format.

.lha -- Out of favor, probably due to patents or ownership. Rarely used.

.tar -- Not a compression program at all. Rather, tar takes a bunch of files and sticks them together into one big file (kind of like, well, a ball of tar). The tar file can then be run through a compression program to create a compressed tar file. Most often, Gzip or BZip2. This is more efficient than zipping each individual file (early compressors could not combine files) and also concatenates files more efficiently than other things (to my knowledge).

.gzip -- To my knowledge, this is the Gnu variant of Zip. Except for being GPL/OSS, it's no different. Almost exclusively *nix, probably because of the openness of the normal .zip format on Windows.

.bz2 -- Also known as bzip2. This is a newer compression algorithm gaining popularity on *nix machines. More efficient than Gzip, but less support.

.bh -- Black Hole? Never seen it used.

.bza -- ?

.yz1 -- ?

Others you missed:
.Arj -- A very old archive format that was the only competition for the .Zip format. It lost the popularity race.

.Ace -- Proprietary format for WinACE commercial software. Better than .Zip, but less favored than .Rar.

.Rar -- Proprietary format for WinRar and Rar. Commercial software, but the most popular commercial software, too. .Rar offers some of the best compression ratios, and unlike 7-Zip it's easy to use. .Rar was the first format to have built-in solid archiving -- basically what tar does -- which drastically reduces the size of archives when used on large numbers of small files.

.pa (I think) -- Power Archiver. Basically a .zip file with a few extra encancements (like solid, or tar-like archives).

Zip 64 -- A newer version of the old .zip format, offers marginally better compression but sacrifices portability (you need a 64-bit unzipper).

The best algorithms:
Rar, bzip2, and 7zip. Rar and 7zip are about equal, but I have no idea how well bzip2 compares to the other two. I know of no Windows-based software that really does bzip2, so I haven't compared them.

 

Very useful analysys,
thx 1000 times mate!!!!

Vincent

 

Check out WinRAR, a handy utility for creating .rar (and many other types of) archives.

 

I was actually trying to use IZarc to archive my stuff but it doesnt seem to support .rar archiving ... only extract from .rar files (not create them).

 

Well, Rarlabs provides the unrar.dll for free to any other program that wants it. It increases the portability of their archive format, which is good for them. WinZIP doesn't include it because it devalues the .ZIP format, which makes them lose money. To create RAR archives, you need WinRAR (or another liscenced app that can do it, but I don't know of any of those).