introduction
This review is based on the space saving issue, NOT on the compressing speed. And now come the rants: but hdd's are so cheap nowadays, why bother with compressing files and for space saving? Well my friends, I have a habit: I backup allot of my files, pictures, movies, documents and others...I still have some from 2002. These files have gotten quite many, and you would not believe how much space can all my photos can eat. All these files are files that I don't use everyday; only when i search for something specific, or having a hard time to remember. That's why, i compress them, to save space. Some of them i even encrypt with a strong password, to protect private stuff, so nobody can mess around with my files.
The settings I used in these programs are:
The settings I used in these programs are:
- 7zip9.20: compression level-ultra; types: LZMA,LZMA2,PPMd and BZip2;
- WinZip16.0: .zip: maximum, .zipx: best method;
- WinRar 4.10b3: archive format: RAR, compression method: best.
Avi File CompressionMost videos and movies i have, are in .avi format, and I figured some figures might be useful for someone who wants to store some files of this type.
Bitmap File CompressionThis specific picture format eats allot of space. That's why it's kinda useful to compress them if you don't access them very often but don't want to delete them.
Doc File CompressionThe famous Microsoft Office - Word format. Everyone has worked with these types of files at one point in his life. A medium sized text does not really eat allot of space. But when you start to gather all the .doc's you have, and keep them over the years, they round up to a pretty big figure
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Jpeg File CompressionProbably the most common file format for pictures.Everyone has at least one .jpeg file on their computer. Again, if you have allot of them, and want to store them all in one file, it could be useful to compress them.
Mp3 File CompressionThe most commonly used file format for music.Offers a good compromise between quality and file size. Most people probably will not want to compress these file, so they could listen to them more easily. I conducted a test anyway, for anyone willing to backup their .mp3 files.
FLAC File compressionPreferred format by audiophiles, for their music, FLAC offers a very good audio quality, at the cost of space.Compressing these files could be useful if you had allot of them, or you want to just store them all together.
Pdf File CompressionPdf's have become quite common recently. Most manuals and books are in this file format. Therefore, if you are like me, and like to keep every little thing, just in case, it might become handy at one time to compress them all, so you can save some space.
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Conclusion and final thoughts
For some people, after seeing the results, it may seem pointless to compress files for backup, and just a waste of time. Well, if you don't have a very big hdd, and are not fond of writing data to dvd's or cd's, notice that de difference between the compressed and the uncompressed .pdf file, is about 4000KB. Multiply this with about 300, and you got some nice space saved.
Best compression method by file type:
Ranking:
1 - 7zip
2 - WinZip
3 - WinRar
Best compression method by file type:
- .avi: 7zip - BZip2
- bitmap: Zip
- .doc: RAR
- FLAC: 7zip - LZMA
- .jpeg: Zip
- .mp3: 7zip - BZip2
- .pdf: 7zip - LZMA2
Ranking:
1 - 7zip
2 - WinZip
3 - WinRar