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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: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:17PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:17PM (#893352) Journal

    Use your choice of Al Gore rhythm. Compress. Then compress the compressed file. Repeat until it is compressed down to a single binary bit.

    When you need to restore, simply take that 1 or 0 and decompress it multiple times back to your original content.

    (With apologies to Information Theory.)

    I had a clown coworker about 18 years ago. He found a scam (?) article making unbelievable claims about some new compression. Of course he believed it. I tried to explain how compression actually works. But science, information theory, etc are no match for someone believing in the compression equivalent of perpetual motion. I heard him utter the same kinds of things perpetual motion advocates say. But maybe they've found some NEW way of compressing better than you think? Why don't you wait and see when people start buying their product? They didn't offer details about the algorithm. Promised details later, etc. Reminds me of the recent claim to have found some fantastic way of factoring semiprimes.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @04:14AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @04:14AM (#893523)

    When I was a young pup of sixteen I remember seeing ads for sale in the back of my dad's Popular Mechanics magazines for the miraculous Pogue carburetor. Of course as a poor kid making minimum wage, struggling to keep the tank filled and a bit mechanically inclined, i was sorely tempted to order a set of plans and try my luck implementing it. Fast forward a couple years and some freshman physics and I realized how foolish I was to entertain the idea.

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobodys-fuel/ [snopes.com]