Archiving can refer to the process of archiving files or the process of archiving data. File archiving is combining one or multiple files into one file or container. Data archiving is the process of relocating data that is no longer actively used to a separate storage area for long-term retention.
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What is the advantage of using 'tar' today?
I know that tar was made for tape archives back in the day, but today we have archive file formats that both aggregate files and perform compression within the same logical file format.
Questions:
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50
votes
20answers
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Compressing with RAR vs ZIP
A lot of people are compressing files with RAR, sending compressed files with RAR and so on.
ZIP is more standard and works on all platforms. Windows users have ZIP included and Linux users have no ...
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8answers
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What’s a good way to extract .rar files on the Mac? [closed]
Anything built-in? (E.g. command line tools.) Any well-regarded software?
Update: I like The Unarchiver, but vote up your favourite, or add it as an answer if it isn’t there.
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6answers
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How can I evaluate the best choice of archive format for compressing files?
In general, I've observed the following:
Linux-y files or tools use bzip2 or gzip for distributing archives
Windows-y files or tools use ZIP for distributing archives
Many people use 7-Zip for ...
19
votes
2answers
13k views
How secure are password-protected zip files?
In modern zip utilities like 7zip, you can specify a password when creating a .ZIP file. But, how secure is this? What encryption algorithm(s) are used to secure password-protected zip files?
18
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3answers
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Can Double Zipping Cause Problems?
I have a directory that I have been storing a ton of files in. Among the 10ish types of files there are also .ZIPs of other directories.
In my personal experience I vaguely remember issues when ...
13
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4answers
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tar – extract discarding directory structure
unzip has a nifty option -j, whereby the directory structure of the archive is discarded, and all files are extracted into the same directory.
Is there a way of making tar work in the same way? ...
12
votes
1answer
224 views
Three formats? Why?
I needed to download the Ruby Source recently from here and it says, "available in three formats" which are .tar.bz2, .tar.gz and .zip. Is there any reason that we need all three formats? At least on ...
11
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5answers
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Map “untar” to tar xvfz?
How can I map 'untar' as a command to 'tar -xvfz' ? Sorry, but I almost always forget the arguments necessary to 'tar' for this operation.
10
votes
9answers
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How can I scan multiple pages into a single PDF?
How could I scan multiple pages into a single PDF on the Mac?
This is for document archival (mostly invoices and receipts). Ideally, the results should be somewhat searchable (but manually giving it ...
10
votes
2answers
3k views
How does file compression work?
So, I realised today I take file compression for granted. The ability to bundle a few files together into one, and have it come out smaller than any of them, is something I just accept as a fact, but ...
9
votes
8answers
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What medium should be used for long term, high volume, data storage (archival)?
This question was inspired by How to store and preserve lots of data?
There have been another similar questions, but none with this type of criteria.
This is two questions in one.
How do you store ...
9
votes
2answers
509 views
Long-term storage reliability of various media
I’m looking for a reference of statistics on long-term storage/archive reliability for various types of media. That is, I’m looking for information, comparisons, charts, graphs, test results, etc. on ...
9
votes
0answers
176 views
Is there a chat log archiver that can import logs from multiple clients? [closed]
Is there an application that can help with organising chat logs from multiple sources?
The use case I'm interested in is if I have logs from different chat clients (Adium, iChat, Skype, XChat, ...
7
votes
3answers
217 views
Video encoding for archival
I would like to archive some home videos (DV). I don't need to save them losslessly, but I would like to encode them in something high-quality.
What format is both pretty indistinguishable from the ...
7
votes
3answers
8k views
Best Secure Encryption for Zip Files via Linux
I want to use highly secure encryption for zipped files via Linux/Ubuntu using a command line terminal, what is the best command line tool to get this job done?
zip -e -P PASSWORD file1 file2 file3 ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
In place extract tar archive
I have a little dilemma here...
I needed to move about 70 GB worth of files from one of my servers to the other, so I decided that tarring them up and sending the archive would be the fastest way.
...
7
votes
3answers
889 views
Creating an OS X PKG file on Linux?
I have Debian / Ubuntu / Xubuntu. I'm trying to distribute and run a Python file with the least number of clicks for the end user. How do I create a PKG file for Mac OS X on Linux?
7
votes
5answers
715 views
tag based file organizer
I'm finishing professional school and over the years have acquired a pile of notes and articles that I'd like to hang onto. I'd like to add to them and create sort of an archive of article and files ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
How long will a Solid-State-Drive (SSD) keep its data while not in use? [closed]
Here's my usecase:
once-and-only-once copy off photos/videos to an internal SATA Solid State Drive (SSD)
put this drive in a well-ventilated, air-conditioned bank "safety deposit box" for safe ...
6
votes
3answers
3k views
TAR vs CPIO, what is the difference?
I am curious and did a bit of reading but still have questions.
What makes CPIO different than TAR? I was told in another question that tar is for pulling together many files into 1 archive which ...
6
votes
5answers
1k views
Whatever happened to compressed read/write filesystems?
Back in the 90s, my home computer was an Acorn Archimedes. It had on it a piece of software called ArcFS, which allowed you to create compressed archives, a bit like zip files.
Unlike zip files, they ...
6
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5answers
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How can I archive a 30 GB file?
I have a 30 GB zip file containing an archive of digital materials available in the school library that I want to burn to DVD. Of course, 30 Gb is far too large for a single DVD and the content is ...
6
votes
4answers
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How to split a zip file across INDPENDENT volumes
I have about 12 GB of image tiles made up of about 2 million files. I'd like to zip these up to make transferring them to a server simpler. I just plan on storing the files in the zip files for ...
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3answers
2k views
Universal command line unarchiving tool on a Mac
Is there some command line tool which allows extracting files from most known archive types? Something like StuffIt Expander, but without gui.
5
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4answers
293 views
Best Floppy Drive for reading old floppies
I have a stack of about 30 floppy disks (3.5" type) that have some old childhood memories on them. However, I'm putting them into my random "cheapo" USB floppy drive and every single one is coming ...
5
votes
5answers
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How do I reassemble a zip file that has been emailed in multiple parts?
I received 3 emails each containing part of a zip file. The extensions end in .z00, .z01 and .z02. (Emailed as such to get around the typical 10Mb attachment limit per email.)
I have put all 3 files ...
5
votes
7answers
3k views
Winrar-like archive utility for OS X
I've been a Mac user for about 1.5 years and so far enjoyed the experience. But one thing I miss from other operating systems is the lack of compression/decompression utilities that follow the ...
5
votes
3answers
2k views
Password-protected file in Mac OSX
How do I store multiple files in an archive (like .zip/.rar) with password-protection on Mac OSX?
It has to be a portable file to keep on Dropbox or a USB-key.
Also, the password-protection must be ...
4
votes
4answers
410 views
Tar and gzip together, but the other way round?
Gzipping a tar file as whole is drop dead easy and even implemented as option inside tar. So far, so good. However, from an archiver's point of view, it would be better to tar the gzipped single ...
4
votes
7answers
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Extract large zip file (50 GB) on Mac OS X
I was trying to move the files to another hard drive. So I archived all my photos in one large ZIP file using the Mac OS X built-in compress function.
But the file failed to extract. I've tried ...
4
votes
3answers
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Howto unzip “.xz” file with 7z and lzma
I tried to uncompressed a "*.xz" file with both 7z and lzma.
But they gave me such message:
$ 7z x myfile.fq.xz
7-Zip 4.57 Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov 2007-12-06
p7zip Version 4.57 ...
4
votes
2answers
190 views
Unix/Linux program that can handle all popular compression/archiving formats (e.g.tar, gzip, bzip2, zip)?
I sometimes get confused by the varying command line options I need to run common Unix archiving and compression software (e.g. gzip, bzip2, zip, tar).
Is there a program out there that can just Do ...
4
votes
2answers
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7 zip extract recursively
I have several folders, and within each folder, there are zip files. I want to run a command line order to recursively go through every folder and extract in place every archived file that it finds, ...
4
votes
2answers
236 views
Are tape archives still used?
In this blog post, Raymond Chen makes a reference to files being on a tape archive. Are tape archives still supported by windows and/or used?
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1answer
86 views
how to “preserve internal directory structure” when unzipping on windows?
I'm tring to build boost, in instructions I've read
When you extract the library from its zip file, you must preserve its internal directory structure (for example by using the -d option when ...
4
votes
3answers
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Create multi volume archive on a Mac
I've got a 6 GB file, which needs to be copied to an USB-drive. The drive is 16 GB, but formatted in FAT so windows computers and Macs can read it. Fat limits the file size to 4 GB, so I cannot copy ...
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votes
3answers
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Where Does WinRAR extract files opened directly?
When I open a .docx file directly from a RAR archive using WinRAR, where does WinRAR extract the file? My OS is Vista. RAR version 3.9.
4
votes
3answers
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Better approach to archiving large amounts of original video footage using optical media (DVD/Blu-ray)?
This question is to share my experience as well as ask for suggestions for better methods.
Along with 2 friends, I completed the making of a short documentary film in 2006.
Clip is at: ...
4
votes
3answers
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how do I use tar -C on Snow Leopard when creating an archive?
The man page states
-C directory
In c and r mode, this changes the directory before adding the following files.
However, tar does not change to the directory I specify, but instead reports
...
4
votes
2answers
798 views
What is the video format to use for archiving videos for long term storage? [closed]
I want to store some videos for long term. But I'm not sure what is the most compatible video format. I don't want to wake up one day in the future when computers use some totally different ...
4
votes
1answer
631 views
Files inside archives can't be opened inside 7zip
I open the archive inside 7zip, then double-click a file inside the archive to open it with the associated application, and I get "File not found" errors in the app (for example opening a image in ...
4
votes
3answers
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Is there a freeware program for editing the text stream of PDFs?
PDFs are a great archive format for scanned images, but Acrobat does not allow you to edit the text layer of the document (the part that can copy and paste from) leaving you with just the raw OCR. Are ...
4
votes
0answers
32 views
Is there a single catch-all-features tracked music format?
I have an archive of old(ish) tracked music in various formats - .mod, .s3m, .it and Commodore 64 .sid files.
Is there a single, well-supported, tracked music format with a super-set of the features ...
4
votes
3answers
256 views
How can I reliably archive the content of UDF formatted CDs and DVDs
I have been looking into copying the contents of old CDs onto mobile disks in order to save space and preserve the content, since rewritable CDs appear to degrade over time (at least the ones I am ...
4
votes
1answer
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How to crack a password protected zip file.
I recently downloaded a piece of software that came in a .ZIP archive, but the .EXE software inside of the archive had a password on it. The website that I would have gotten the password from closed ...
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2answers
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How to set password on already existing winrar archive and encrypt it also?
Not when creating new archive, but on existing archive. I would also like to know how to do that in other archiver.
3
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4answers
1k views
What would be the down side(s) to backup archival via SD cards?
While doing some photography reading, i came across some support for archiving photos, videos on SD Cards. The process looked like:
Fill up SD Card with DSLR
Share/publish any choice items via the ...
3
votes
9answers
449 views
How do you organize a large collection of CDs/DVDs?
I have been using a program called myOrganizer, which is quite dated. Although it is freeware, I think it is a quite out of date program. It does not support tagging, synchronizing, and has very ...
3
votes
2answers
173 views
How to print dir tree of a 7zip archive?
Before extract archive.7z, I always check what in side:
$ 7z l archive.7z
...SKIP...
2010-01-01 00:00:00 ..... 25856 7367 jsloader/resource/gre/modules/source-editor-textarea.jsm
...
