[AccessD] OT RE: Rar vs winzip

Michael Bahr jedi at charm.net
Mon Feb 11 17:24:36 CST 2008


Hi John, so are you saying it takes Winzip over 4 DAYS??  Well I think I
know what your problem is.........swap file.  I ran across this about 5
years ago.  I had a 1.5 GB zip file of plain text.  Of course being text
it compressed very well.  Although I still had ~4 GB free space WinZip
wants to unzip into the temp folder and then move it to your desired
folder.  That meant at least 2 times the uncompressed size.

So I bet that is your problem, lack of swap/page file space.  That means a
tremendous amount of disk swapping is occuring.  As a test take a 160-250
empty (formatted) HD and make that your swap file.  Tell Windows to remove
your current virtual memory and move it to the HD and specify the full
size.  Windows might complain but who cares, right?

Right click on My Comuter | Advanced | Performance Settings | Advanced Tab
| Virtual memory Change.

Your overall performace should also increase.

Mike...


> 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,
>
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