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Which Compression Format to Use for Archiving?

posted by martyb on Thursday September 12 2019, @07:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-depends dept.

canopic jug writes:

Web developer Ukiah Smith wrote a blog post about which compression format to use when archiving. Obviously the algorithm must be lossless but beyond that he sets some criteria and then evaluates how some of the more common methods line up.

After some brainstorming I have arrived with a set of criteria that I believe will help ensure my data is safe while using compression.

  • The compression tool must be opensource.
  • The compression format must be open.
  • The tool must be popular enough to be supported by the community.
  • Ideally there would be multiple implementations.
  • The format must be resilient to data loss.

Some formats I am looking at are zip, 7zip, rar, xz, bzip2, tar.

He closes by mentioning error correction. That has become more important than most acknowledge due to the large size of data files, the density of storage, and the propensity for bits to flip.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:07PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:07PM (#893345) Journal

    If you want to be "safer," keep those multiple copies separated as far as practical from one another.

    Opposite sides of the drive platter, outermost cylinder, is as far as they can be separated without leaving the confines of the drive enclosure. If the drive is SSD, then cylinders and far apart and seek time become confusing.

    Off site backups have higher latency to access. But hopefully you never need to access them in an emergency.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:36PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:36PM (#893371)

    I'm satisfied with two external hard drives, connected to the same machine. Sure, lightning strike, fire, etc. could take them both down at once, but... so far I have been robust against 3 drive failures in the last 20 years, and I haven't had to screw around with multi-site issues.

    If my data had "real" value, I'd do the remote site rsync, at least out to the garage. "Priceless" family photos just don't merit that much effort, in my life.

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