[AccessD] OT RE: Rar vs winzip

Mike,

LOL, I know all of that.  I was just posting an "interesting (and maybe
valuable) to know" kind of email.  I wasn't expecting anything like the
response I received.

Let me tell you something.  I zipped a hundred gig file.  It took RAR about
28 HOURS to zip it.  It takes Winzip about FOUR times as long to do the
same.  I scheduled it to RAR over the weekend, not over lunch!  ;-)

I was just pointing out that is useful to know your options.  I would NEVER
schedule a RAR during a time that I had to use the computer.  OTOH I would
schedule a Winzip when I had to use the computer.  I would NEVER try to
Winzip a 100g file.  It would just take so many days that it would be silly
to even contemplate.  I have 400 gigs of data I want to zip up (or RAR up).
Using Winzip is a non starter.  It would be next Christmas before it got
done.  BUT... I also have to be careful to not do the RAR while I need the
computer.

Again, it is just useful to know what choices I have and how they effect how
I work.

In this day and age, I would expect such utilities to allow me to designate
a % of total CPU power to apply to the task.  Neither one does TTBOMK,
though I haven't gone looking either.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Michael Bahr
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 12:34 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT RE: Rar vs winzip

John, RAR is not as popular as is WinZip.  You would forcing others to
purchase RAR to uncompress your files.  That could be annoying.  Also, one
of the many reasons for the multi-core processors is so that you can do
multiple things at one time stretched across the processors which is suppose
to make you more productive; this is different from single core processors.
But if an application consumes all processors then I would have to think
that is a flaw unless there is specifically an option to use one or more
processors.

If you are concerned about the zipping time then schedule it for
lunch/dinner or ...

Mike...

> Jim,
>
> Actually the focus wasn't how it uses a quad core specifically but 
> rather that RAR seems to make better use of multi-core (multi-thread) 
> in general, how that effects the speed of getting a file zipped up, 
> and how that effects processor usage.  Since I work from a home 
> office, I have used Winzip a LOT to ship Access files back and forth 
> from my clients.  Often times the time to zip up the files gets 
> excessive, I have a client with total data BEs approaching a gig.  I 
> just thought it might be useful information to those of us who face 
> this problem.  I will certainly be using RAR from this point on when I 
> need to get a big file zipped in a hurry.  OTOH it pretty much 
> consumes the processor so I will NOT use it if I need to be working on 
> other things simultaneously.
>
> I just found it an interesting comparison between the two products and 
> how they effect what I do.  In fact I happened (at the time) to be 
> zipping huge SQL Server databases for archiving, but as you pointed 
> out, the file type is indeed irrelevant.
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Dettman
> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 5:41 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: [AccessD] OT RE: Rar vs winzip
>
> Bobby,
>
>   The focus though wasn't in working with databases per say, but how 
> WinZip and RAR works with a quad core processor.  The file type really 
> is a moot point.
>
> Jim,