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Is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn to CD/DVD a zip (or a few large zips) of files rather than the files as a folder?
Just thinking if 1000s of small files would not be as efficiently recorded compared with one or a few large zips.
Also, even after the burning program verifies the disc, I also use Beyond Compare to compare the files with those on the disc. Always binary compares as identical but I hear the drive stuttering presumably as the head is being shifted only slightly each time to seek the next file, which leads me to think that its best to make one or more zips and copy those locally to compare. Or is it that burning invidual files to the disc is not as readable which causes the head to stutter.
There aren't any problems, my disc burns are reliable, just thinking more of efficiency and longevity, the discs burn and verify fast enough on my 18x DVD burner.
I'm using ImgBurn mostly. Also used Nero in the past.
I burn whole discs closed, finalised. Not sure which write mode but would think Disc At Once from a temporary cached image made by the burning program would be the most reliable.
Another approach that gives similar benefits to burning a .zip file is to create a disc image of the files to be burned and then burn the image. To me this would give a steady burn of the data as it is a single file that can be streamed to the burner, rather than the burner's host machine having to seek out individual files. With this approach there is not the inconvenience as with zip where the files have to be unzipped. In fact this is the approach I now use when archiving. – therobyouknow – 2015-02-11T08:28:48.050
In a zip, files are compressed independently, so a flipped bit will normally corrupt only a single file. I wrote a script to test this: https://github.com/gmatht/joshell/blob/master/scripts/test_corruptzip.sh
– gmatht – 2015-03-11T11:37:27.960+1 and accepted answer. I agree with individual files, no-one has said that individual files is less reliable. Convenience of individual files is an important point. Risk of more data loss with zips caused by damage vs individual files and the same damage weighs in favour of the individual files. Efficiency of storage is a low priority as you might agree, given the low cost of good blank DVD media. Speed of burning less data occupied by a zip is not important either given that this is a one off, and as you say may not compress with already compressed filetypes. – therobyouknow – 2010-12-07T23:58:46.683
PS faster access of zip being smaller than uncompressed files is cancelled out by the inconvenience of browsing the zip, again zip compression may not offer much benefit if files already compressed. – therobyouknow – 2010-12-08T00:00:05.557
Only benefit of zip I can see is for files with long file names that need to be retained or for deep path names. Path depth and filename length can exceed the ISO or UDF standards for DVD though some burning programs may relax this. But the relaxation may not be standardised itself and be inconsistent and unpredictable results with sharing with other people. At least the .zip standard (and its related formats, .7z, .rar, etc) can retain full path depth and filelength, probably useful for website dumps, source code build trees etc. where importance retaining these outweighs the inconvenience. – therobyouknow – 2010-12-08T00:03:17.007
@Rob good point on the filename stuff. There are extensions to the ISO spec, but as extensions, aren't guaranteed. – Rich Homolka – 2010-12-08T00:25:14.727
extensions: indeed apps arbitrarily relaxing them isn't always a standard. But UDF is a standard allows for deeper paths than ISO and longer filenames. If the archive to optical disc, e.g. DVD, needs to be read by machines running OSs earlier than XP then ISO is recommended as old as well as new can read this, use .zip for deep paths. However, given that these are a diminishing minority, UDF is recommended if unlikely that older machines need to read the archive, also avoiding inconvenience and the more damage sensitive .zip (as @Rich Homolka points out in accepted answer). – therobyouknow – 2010-12-12T00:51:57.010