Using Winrar 5.61 in Windows 10.
When archiving Kontakt libraries, and a couple of other sample libraries it seems that selecting the "RAR4" format creates smaller archives than "RAR" format (RAR5).
With other mixed files it varies which is smaller.
Anyone have any ideas why I am getting this result?

 

Why are you still using Winrar? It's 2019

 

This is absolutely normal. There are many compression algorithms out there. Each of them is more suitable for one or for another case. You can also combine some of them in sequence to compress the data even more (I do not mean WinRAR and WinZip but i.e. Lempel–Ziv–Welch algorithm, Run-length encoding etc that are maybe used by WinRAR and WinZip). The problem is the data itself so you cannot foresee which algorithm or what combination you should use to achieve the smallest archive. You know this only after the compression has finished.
If the developers of WinRAR say that version 5 creates smaller archives than version 4 then this could be the case for most of the scenarios like compressing text files, compressing word documents and so on. But this does not guarantee that the archive size is smaller in every scenario.
In my tests I would say creating a "solid archive" in WinRAR gives you the best results (this counts for both, version 4 and 5) but the downside of it is extracting a single file (like an *.nfo) from the archive takes way longer.

 

I usually get better results with 7-zip.

 

Rar5 format has additional backups/security for cases of damaged archives and general reliability.

 

What *should* I be using? I have 7-zip but it seems Winrar is being used for most of what I download.

Thanks for the confirmation. Considering the space savings are significant with libraries i was wanting to use whatever setting produced the best result. I did read about the decreased chance of recovery with solid archives, and the long wait to extract or modify, but this is for storage and will be backed up, so I might try solid and see what savings. Now I can't recall, but as long as using solid does not increase the POTENTIAL FOR damage i may use that. Thanks again!

I'll have to try that again. Even if I use Winrar out of habit, if the results are better, it's worth the change for this kind of archiving. Thanks!

 

Yes...I need to read more, but I thought a recovery required an increase in archive size for the recovery record, and I am a bit more worried about total loss through HDD failure so I was aiming at smallest size and backing up on another drive. Of course if there is something wrong with the original archive, backing it up doesn't help, so I have been testing them as well.

 

What do you mean? It doesn't matter which software you use to unpack things you've downloaded as longs as your software can read the file.

 

Keep away from 7zip, the software has big flaw when unpacking multipart archives. The program did not recognize or show missing parts. It took me long time to find out what happened.

 

Interesting. I was talking about repacking for storage, but what do YOU use to unpack?

 

7-zip. I see no need to use old shareware software when free, modern, and in a lot of ways superior, alternatives exist. Especially when .7z typically results in even smaller files than .zip/.rar

It does mention missing parts as well as warns if there is data after the archive if you use the console version. I use XYplorer with a custom action on archives that triggers the command-line extract.

 

Yes, but these improvements are to recovery record, and they will ONLY be useful if recovery record is ON (iirc, defaults to OFF)

 

Well I use 7-zip for a lot of daily stuff because I had it set up conveniently in right-click menu. Just backing up stuff before making changes and a few manual backups I do.
I don't expect I'll be doing any multipart with these DAW archives, so no worry about console version weirdness. I never noticed anything wrong with it, but most of those backups were never opened once created... But I'll check it out if the space savings is aethetically worth having the mixed archive types It's only the big ones I am focused on making a bit smaller ..

 

You can also make .zip and .rar files with 7-zip, you know

 

If you activate recovery information for compression in Winrar, you are on the safe side. Winrar could repair nearly every rar-file with CRC error for me, if the rar-file was compressed with recovery information. But there is a more powerful feature in Winrar, do you know rev-files ?

 

The best way to pack/unpack, manage files is with Double Commander and it has 7-zip built-in.
https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/

 

I'd rather use Free Commander which is not in beta, already tested and frequently updated (last update 05.01.2019). Though to be honest I've tried a lot of file managers - Directory Opus was one of the better ones, but nothing comes close to XYplorer. Portable file explorer with custom file associations to portable apps so you can just double click on the go and things open in the software you prefer (and portable custom New> options, including full folders with template files if you so wish)? Yes please!

 

I prefer Double Commander because it is cross platform.

 

Use 7zip and its LZMA2 compression method. For now, it is one of the best.

 

Still can't quite get the point of "because it's cross platform"... it's not like people are jumping between platforms every week, is it?