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Which archive software are we using in 2010 (and why)?
wr975:
I believe you are right about the dump that I receive in RAR format is not packed using the most extreme settings RAR has to offer.
But still, I expect 7-zip to be at least 30% to 50% more efficient than anything winRAR can bring to the table. Regarding my dumpfiles that is.
-Shades (August 12, 2010, 05:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
At the cost of time.
I tried packing 2 GB of Access databases. 7z (Ultra) was about 26% smaller, but needed 20 minutes, while RAR (best) needed 6 minutes.
26% more effective, but 3x slower.
I'm not sure if "smallest archive size" is the only way to find the "best archiving utility". I think RAR's compression time/size ratio is quite OK. I also like its ability to detected CRC errors in (split) archives, report missing archives, repair defective files using recovery records, keep broken files, extract from split archives even without the full set,... and so on.
Just guessing, but perhaps your 200 GB file is packed with "super fast" because it would need longer to compress / decompress a strong compressed file (7z "ultra" or RAR "best"), than downloading the extra 11 GB (because of weak compression).
CWuestefeld:
I'm not sure if "smallest archive size" is the only way to find the "best archiving utility". I think RAR's compression time/size ratio is quite OK.
-wr975 (August 13, 2010, 09:04 AM)
--- End quote ---
It certainly is ... for applications where its compression/speed tradeoff is appropriate. Every application has a unique requirement.
I recently had to change from ZIP to 7Z for an application here at work. The archive file size exceeded 2GB, and the limitations of some of the software involved (including our embedded ZIP archive code, if not the ZIP format itself) forced us to hold the file size below that limit. RAR was out of the question, since the compression code requires a commercial license. We had little choice but to pick 7Z in this case.
On the other hand, we've done a fair amount of experimentation on compression of data to be transmitted through web services. Again using the same embedded ZIP compressor, we found that maximal compression only achieved a marginal improvement over high compression (for the type of data we were compressing, at least), but required many times the computation resources. It seemed like the best tradeoff for the scalability of our web services was to go with just high compression, and let the CPUs and RAM have a lighter load.
Shades:
I believe you are right about the dump that I receive in RAR format is not packed using the most extreme settings RAR has to offer.
But still, I expect 7-zip to be at least 30% to 50% more efficient than anything winRAR can bring to the table. Regarding my dumpfiles that is.
-Shades (August 12, 2010, 05:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
At the cost of time.
I tried packing 2 GB of Access databases. 7z (Ultra) was about 26% smaller, but needed 20 minutes, while RAR (best) needed 6 minutes.
26% more effective, but 3x slower.
I'm not sure if "smallest archive size" is the only way to find the "best archiving utility". I think RAR's compression time/size ratio is quite OK. I also like its ability to detected CRC errors in (split) archives, report missing archives, repair defective files using recovery records, keep broken files, extract from split archives even without the full set,... and so on.
Just guessing, but perhaps your 200 GB file is packed with "super fast" because it would need longer to compress / decompress a strong compressed file (7z "ultra" or RAR "best"), than downloading the extra 11 GB (because of weak compression).
-wr975 (August 13, 2010, 09:04 AM)
--- End quote ---
Your point is very true...with a high capacity connection.
However, I have to pull those files through a 512KBit connection which is costing about 120 USD/month. You can get cheaper, higher rated connections over here, but those lines here are really 'overbooked' and unreliable. In my situation I simply lose too much time downloading. Besides that, my download is immediately ready to be stored on the least amount of DVD's.
electronixtar:
There is a Chinese WinRAR knockoff for 7z:
http://www.coolrar.com/
source code (will be BSD in 2.0):
http://www.coolrar.com/download/CoolRAR1.0.0.7z
f0dder:
Shades: sending only a diff of the dumps isn't an option?
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