Spanned Archives
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Transferring large archives is next to impossible sometimes, but there is a solution. Spanned archives can make your life a lot easier by splitting a single large archive into smaller more manageable chunks. This way, you can make files that fit perfectly onto a floppy disk, or any size you like. There are several file formats that support spanned archiving: ALZ, ACE, ARJ, RAR, and ZIP. ALZip supports extraction of all of these file formats (for more information on supported formats see ALZip supported formats). The ALZip native spanned archive format, ALZ, creates the first compressed file with an .alz extension. Each successive file in the spanned archive takes an a## extension, e.g. the second file takes an a00 extension, the third takes an a01 extension, etc... When you extract spanned archives, they must all be located in the same folder. Tip: In addition to its native ALZ format, ALZip is also capable of extracting spanned ZIP, RAR, and ACE archives. Tip: When extracting spanned archives, all parts (volumes) must be in the same directory. Tip: You cannot add or delete files in spanned archives. You must extract all the files in a spanned archive and create a new one if you wish to add or delete files. 1. The ALZ spanned archive format The ALZ format, developed by the ESTsoft Corp. in Sept. 2001, is a robust archiving file format designed to support large spanned archives. The first file (volume) in an ALZ spanned archive takes the .alz extention, with additional files (volumes) taking a sequentially numbered extension, e.g. .a00, .a01, .a02, etc. To create a spanned archive, go to the Create new archive dialog box or New archive dialog box, specify the compression type as ALZ, choose an archive volume size in Spanned archives, and then click the Add button. Spanned archive patterns in ALZ format ALZip filename.alz (ALZ spanned archives with more than 101 volumes follow this extension scheme: .alz, .a00, .a01, ... .a99, .b00, .b01 ... .b99, .c00, .c01, etc. This allows you to create spanned archives with over 2600 volumes!) 2. ZIP spanned archives
ZIP files have been the most common and user-friendly archive format since the old DOS days. The ZIP format boasted decent performance and relative ease-of-use. As people moved from DOS to the Windows environment, more and more Windows utilities supporting ZIP files were released. WinZip, which is primarily used for ZIP files, has since become the most widely used compression utility. WinZip, however, for the longest time never gave PC users the ability to create spanned archives on hard disks. That has since changed, and WinZip now supports spanning large compressed files directly on hard disk. WinZip refers to spanned archives as "splitting zip files". ZIP spanned archive extensions WinZip filename.z01 WinACE filename.zip Other utilities ... filename.zip
3. RAR spanned archives RAR files are another common format and have been widely used since the DOS days as well. The general lack of support for spanning in other archive file formats made WinRAR quite popular. The RAR spanned archive format, unlike the ZIP spanned archive format, allows users to determine their own file size and save the volumes to hard disk. Nowadays, Rarsoft's WinRAR supports more than just the RAR file format, however, you can only create RAR and ZIP files with WinRAR. WinRAR RAR spanned archive extensions (old RAR format) filename.rar RAR spanned archive extensions (new RAR format) * Since Rarsoft introduced it's new RAR format, many compression utilities no longer support RAR files completely. ALZip fully supports extracting the new RAR format including support for unicode file names (e.g. Japanese file names). filename.part01.rar
4. ACE spanned archives The ACE format come onto the compression scene in the late 1990s. WinAce, however, has some compatibility issues since the release of WinACE 2.0. ACE spanned archive extensions WinACE filename.ace
Related Topics - [ Contents ] - [ Index ] - ALZip supported file formats, The Create new archive dialog box, Adding with ALZip
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Extracting spanned archives