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file compression suggestions and best practices






How to optimize file compression, best practices


settings and options to improve archiving efficiency
Tips, best practices for maximum data compression performances

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Purposes of data compression and archiving

File archiving is a way to consolidate multiple input files in a single output archive, often using integrated data compression strategies for removing data redundancies, so the output is both smaller (to save disk space occupation and upload/download bandwidth) and easier to handle than separate input files - learn more: what is a compressed / archive file


Optimize compression method due end user's goals


A common concern about compressing data - either for backup or file upload or distribution - is balancing worthy compression ratio with reasonably fast operational speed, so i.e. end users will be able to unpack data in a timely fashion, or a backup process will end in a fixed maximum amount of time.
As scenarios of different goals and constrains will vary, file compression efficiency factors must be carefully weighted minding intended use of the data in first place, in following chapter will be provided some suggestions for carefully chosing strategies and best parameters for optimal compression results.


Data compression best practices


Quite obviously, best data compression practices mean nothing if the file cannot be provided to the intended end user. If the archive needs to be shared, the first concern is what archive file types is capable to read the end user - what archive formats are supported or can be supported through end user computing platform (Microsoft Windows, Google Android/ChromeOS, iOS, Apple OSX, Linux, BDS...) - if the user is willing and authorized to install needed software.
So most of times the better choice in this case is staying with most common format (ZIP), while RAR is quite popular on MS Windows platforms and TAR is ubiquitously supported on Unix derivate systems, and 7Z is becoming increasingly popular on all systems.

Some file sharing platforms, cloud services, and e-mail provides may block some file types with the explanation they are commonly abused (spam, viruses, illicit content), preventing it to reach the intended end user(s), so it is critical to read terms of services to avoid this issue.
Usually changing file extension is not a solution, as each archive file has a well defined internal structure (that is meant for the file to properly function, so can hardly be cloaked) so file format recognition is seldom based on simple parsing the file extension.
In some other cases are blocked all encrypted files or all files of unknown/unsupported formats that service provider are not able to inspect / scan for viruses.

Keep archive size under a mandatory max size

settings and options to improve compression efficiency

To meet maximum size constrains (i.e. e-mail attachment limit or physical support size) you can divide the output in volumes of desired size (file spanning), progressively numbered i.e .001, .002, .nnn so the receiver can extract the whole archive, usually, saving all files in the same path and starting extraction from .001 file.
File split can be recommended as the simplest and most efficient way to securely fit in a mandatory output size, rather than trying to improve compression ratio with slower / heavier algorithms / settings in the hope to fit the desired target size - which may not be possible despising the speed penality.

tips to improve data compression efficiency


Following block discuss factors that influences more the efficiency of compression, and which needs more weight and attention in evaluation for choiche of best compression strategy, and options / tips & tricks to obtain best results.

More suggestions can be found on: compression algorithms comparisoninformation theory compression, entropyinformation theory compression and maximum e-mail attachment sizemaximum email size allowed articles on Wikipedia.



Best options for maximum compression efficiency


best practices to optimize file compression

Evaluate need for using high compression formats and settings

Highest compression ratio is usually attained with slower and more computing intensive algorithms, i.e. RAR compression is slower and more powerful than ZIP compression, and 7Z compression is slower and more powerful compressor than RAR, with PAQ / ZPAQ outperforming other algorithms in terms of maximum compression ratio but requiring more computing power.
See file compression formats comparison and compression benchmarks for comparison of strongest compression algorithms, and impact on speed and compression ratio adperformances of different file archiving formats.
Different data types may lead to different results with different data compression algorithms, in example weaker RAR and ZIPX compression can close the gap with stronger 7Z compression when multimedia files compression is involved, due to efficiently optimized filters for multimedia files employed in RAR and ZIPX when suitable data structures are detected - anyway lossy compressed multimedia files remains poorly compressible data structures.
Switching to a more powerful algorithm is usually more efficient in terms of improving compression ratio than using highest compression ratios of a weaker compression algorithm.
It is suggested to evaluate carefully if better compression is really needed (after deduplication, and evaluation of poorly compressible files), or if the archive is mainly made for other reasons than decreasing file size i.e. applying encryption, handling the content as a single file, etc.
If time is a critical factor, speed should be the primary factor to take in account, and fastest available algoritms should be preferred, as zlib's Deflate (GZip, ZIP, Zopfli), Brotli, or Zstandard.

best settings for maximum compression

Identify poorly compressible files

Evaluate if spending time to compress poorly compressible data or, rather, simply store it "as is". Some data structures contain high levels of entropy, or entropy is introduced by previous processes as encryption or compression -  making further compression efforts difficult or even useless; computing power wold be more productively spent reducing size occupation of other types of files, leading to both better results and faster operation.
Multimedia files (MP3, JPG, MPEG, AVI, DIVX...) tend to poorly compressible, as those formats features lossy compression, and, especially videos, are usually very large compared to other file types (documents, applications), so it should be evaluated carefully if they should be compressed at all - it is recommended using "Store" option for compression level, provided by most file archivers, meaning compression is disabled (fastest, as speed is only bound from disk copy performances) - or even copied "as is" without even passing them to the compressor application.
For best practices to reduce disk usage of graphic files (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP) see how to optimize compression of images for tips and tricks.
Some document formats (PDF, Open Office and new Microsoft Office 2007 and beyond file formats), and some databases, are already compressed (usually fast deflate based lossless compression), so they generally does not compress well.
Archive files (7Z, RAR, ZIP...) are already compressed and cannot be directly compressed (gains will be small, if any), but archives can be converted (extracted to the original non-compressed form, and the re-compressed) to a format providing a better compression ratio.
Encrypted data is not compressible at all, being pseudo random there is not a "shorter way" to represent the information carried in encrypted form; attempting compression of encrypted files is not recommended.
Separating poorly compressible data from other data is a good way to start a compression policy definition to decide the best strategy for handling both the types of data.

suggestions for best file compression ratio

Evaluate solid compression advantages

Solid compression, available as option for some archival formats like 7Z and RAR, can improve final compression ratio, it works providing a wider context for compression algorithm to reduce data redundancy and represent it in a more convenient way to spare output file size.
But the context information is needed also during extraction, so extraction from a solid archive needs more time to parse all the relevant context data (usually defined "solid block") and can be significantly slower than from a non solid archive.
7Z allows to chose the block size to be used for solid mode operation (the "window" data context is used by the algorithm) to minimize overhead, but this option also slightly reduces compression ratio improvements.
Applying XZ, Brotli compression, Bzip2 compression, GZip compression or ZSTD compression to a tar archive is a two-step equivalent of solid mode compression.
Chose carefully if the intended use of the compressed data needs high compression/solid compression to be used, the more often the data will be needed to be extracted the more times the computational overhead will apply for each end user.
In example, software distribution would greatly benefit of maximum compression, as saving bandwidth is critical and end user usually extracts the data only once, while the overhead may not be acceptable if the data needs to be accessed often and fastest extraction time becomes a decisive efficiency advantage

how to set maximum compression settings

You usually don't need to archive duplicate files

A very obvious suggestion is to removing duplicate identical files (deduplication) in order to avoid archiving redundant data whenever it is adviceable.
Identify and remove duplicate files before archival decreases the input size improving both operation time and final size result, and at the same time make easier for the end user to navigate/search in a tidier archive. Don't remove duplicate files if they are mandatorily needed in the path they are originally featured, i.e. by a software or an automated procedure.

suggestions for maximum file compression

Zeroing free space on virtual machines and disk images to remove non-meaningful information

Zero delete
function (File tools submenu) is intended for overwriting file data or free partition space with all-0 stream, in order to fill corresponding physical disk area of homegeneus, highly compressible data.
This allows to save space when compressing disk images, either low-level physical disk snapshot done for backup porpose, and Virtual Machines guest virtual disks, as the 1:1 exact copy of the disk content is not burdened of leftover data on free space area - some disk imaging utilities and Virtual Machines players/managers have built-in compression routines, zeroing free space before is strongly recommended to improve compression ratio.
Zeroing deletion also offers a basic grade of security improvement over PeaZip's "Quick delete" function, which simply remove the file from filesystem, making it not recoverable by system's recycle bin but susceptible of being recovered with undelete file utilities. Zero deletion however is not meant for advanced security, and PeaZip's Secure delete should be used instead when it is needed to securely and permanently erase a file or sanitize free space on a volume for privacy reasons.
Learn more about optimizing virtual machines and disk images compression.

suggestion to improve data compression

Impact of using self extracting archives

Self extracting archives are useful to provide the end user of the appropriate extraction routines without the need of installing any software, but being the extraction module embedded in the archive it represent an overhead of some 10s or 100s of KB, which makes it a noticeable disadvantage only in the case of very small (e.g. approximately less than 1MB) archives - which is however well in the size  range of a typical archive of a few textual documents. Moreover, being the self extracting archive an executable file, some file sharing platforms, cloud providers, and e-mail servers, may block the file, preventing it to reach the intended receiver(s).

Synopsis: How to optimize file compression ratio and speed. Best settings and options to improve file archiving and compression efficiency. Suggestions and best practices for maximum data compression performances.

Topics: how to optimize compression of files, what are the best compression options

PeaZip > FAQ > How to optimize file compression, best practices


how to improve compression of files and foldersARCHIVE MANAGER

7Z RAR TAR ZIP archive formats limitations

Atomic TAR files extraction, how to automatically untar compressed TAR archives in a single step

Comparison of compression algorithms and archive formats

How file compression (lossy, lossless) and archiving works?

How to add files and folders to a new archive

How to convert existing archives

How to extract single or multiple archives at once

How to open, list, browse, and search archive file

How to update existing archives

How to improve file compression performances

Self extracting archives

What is solid compression?

Why some types of files cannot be compressed?






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