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I am currently working on changing all the computers for a company.

To do the data transfers to the new computer I must either transfer it directly, or through the network by making a huge big file.

Which is preferable?

If network file transfer is, which is faster between zip with no compression or tar?

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    There won't be a difference, tar and zip without compression simply stack files inside a big archive. 50 files of 100 Kb will result in a big file of 5 MB
    – jcbermu
    May 11, 2018 at 10:35
  • Making zip or tar have their overheads. You need double space to store original as well as new file with no compression. And compressing and extracting files would again take time. I believe, coping file directly would be much faster if you compare overall time.
    – Sandeep
    May 11, 2018 at 10:56
  • Why aren't you using a disk image, extracted to each new computer? And why no compression? Sending and extracting an archive file unusual... are you only adding a couple new folders/files? Not updating the whole system drive?
    – Xen2050
    May 11, 2018 at 12:22
  • I am using a software coded by the devs of the company, it uses robocopy to sends the file from a win7 computer to a win10, I saw the it send big files faster than a lot of little ones, so I thought of using something like tar with 7zip but was wondering if it would still be faster by just transferring the files
    – jyroman
    May 11, 2018 at 15:05

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Zip files are created by concatenating the file data and adding metadata at the end. This means that unzip tools must read the end of the archive before the files can be extracted.

Tar files are created by putting a small amount of metadata before each file as it is added to the archive. This means that files can be added on the fly very easily and that untar tools can extract files as soon as the archive data starts coming in.

Zip files are usable when the archive can be generated all at once, whereas tar files can be transferred over a network and processed easily at each end.

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