On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 11:32:38PM -0600, dave wrote: > I'd like to try and back up my ./home directory, but the only back-up > device I own is a zip-drive. What archiving format delivers the > greatest compression? How small can I compress, say a 1GB directory?
Compression: bzip2 is decent and probably already installed. If you want the tightest compression, refer to the Archive Comparison Test[1]. While lossless compression is a mature field, the epsilon that a better compressor provides might save you a disk. Note that even a single bit error in a compressed archive could corrupt a large number of files. Reliability: Doc's suggestion of MD5 is good, but knowing your files are corrupt is not going to help you after the fact. par2cmdline[2] creates parity blocks which can reconstruct damaged files, and with enough blocks, you could reconstruct your backup even if you misplace a Zip disk. Logistics: split will break your 1GB tar file into properly sized chunks. cat will restore them. Do not forget about symbolic links! tar -h if you want to take the data with you. > Also, does anybody have any cautionary advice to give regarding an > upgrade from MDK9.0 to MDK9.1? Buy a child's wading pool, seven canisters of motor oil, and a pink tutu. [1] http://compression.ca/ [2] http://parchive.sourceforge.net/ -- Andrew Gaul http://gaul.org/ _______________________________________________ Siglinux mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://machito.utacm.org/mailman/listinfo/siglinux
