Quickly Packaging Compressed Files

[jgbishop]

I have a number of compressed files that I would like to wrap inside of a container (so as to have them all in one place). I am currently using a ZIP file, but trying to compress files that are already compressed is clearly a waste of CPU cycles.

Is wrapping these files into a TAR a better approach? I'm interested in the speed of packaging them. Any suggestions?

 

[n7]

I don't actually know for sure, but considering how hugely popular WinRAR is, you may want to try it vs. WinZIP.

 

[Nothinman]

I would use tar, but I'm on linux so tar makes a lot of sense for me. If you want to use zip, why not just set the zip to no compression?

 

[Schadenfroh]

try the freeware, opensource, bloatfree, 7-Zip.

Compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests. We compared 7-Zip with some of the leading archivers: WinRAR 3.10, WinAce 2.3, CABARC 1.0, PKZIP 2.50.

FILE SET: The GIMP 1.2.4 for Windows after full installation (127 subfolders, 1304 files totaling 27,128,826 bytes). The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It can be downloaded from www.gimp.org.
Archiver Compressed size Ratio
7-Zip (7z format) 5445402 100%
WinRAR 3.10 6004155 110%
WinAce 2.3 6242424 115%
CABARC 1.0 6455327 119%
7-Zip (zip format) 9461621 174%
PKZIP 2.50 9842800 181%

Usually 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30-70% better than to zip format. And 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2-10% better than other zip compatible programs.

 

[oog]

you can find TAR for win32, and i'm pretty sure winrar supports them.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Uh, subfolder?

- M4H