Howdy, over the years, I've been making customized poser characters for people (mostly wrestling characters for Fantasy Wrestling Leagues) all of various sizes, shapes, textures, musculature, etc.  I always save the respective CR2/PNG files just in case the handler wants me to Re-pose his wrestling character for a different scene. 

Anyhow, like I said, I've been saving all the necessary files on discs, just in case I need to re-load a specific character for reposing.  However, the CR2/PNG files, along with any customized texture files I may create for a particular character (IE, adding scars, tattoos or bruises to a skin texture or adding lettering/designs to a clothes texture) take up an enormous amount of space and I was wondering if "zipping" them up for storage on a disc would be safe?  In other words, would zipping up these CR2/PNG files, as well as any texture files in PSD format, corrupt them?  If I zip them up and then unzip them later to load/use them in poser, would they still be in working order?

Also, if it is safe to do so, would it be advisable to zip EACH CR2 file separately or can I zip a Folder full of CR2 files (containing approx 20 or 30 CR2/PNG files) as one zip?

Thanks in advance......

Pandorian

I've never heard of a problem with that. the only problems I've seen are in regard to degradation of magnetic and optical media, and the use of passwords (encryption).

Consider that, if you save very large zips on CD/DVD, one little read-error makes all files inside your big zipfiles unretriveable. So, it may be safer to zip single files.

Zipping files is very save. The zip-algo restores compressed data 100%.

Thanks for the info Miss Nancy and ADP001.  Also, that is a very valid point you made ADP001 about the read error rendering ALL the files in the folder unretrievable..... thanks for enlightening me.  :)

Pandorian

EDIT:  sorry, I didn't see that you were wanting to save files for future use instead of just saving hard drive storage.

Personally what I would do in your place is use an external hard drive and compress the files inside Poser and not do the zipping thing.

Last year I reformatted my hard drive and I spent 12 hours burning CDs so that I wouldn't lose my poser runtimes or any other important data.   I figured that the reformat was going to be a breeze. How wrong I was.   Almost every single CD that I burned had some kind of "cannot inflate" error for some files and as you know with a Poser it's important to have ALL of the files, not just some. Rather than wasting my time trying to figure out what files unzipped and what didn't, I ended up reinstalling my runtimes from scratch.  

Actually, I already use an external hd.  It's a 40 gig external drive but I'm quickly running outta space on that as well.  I have piles of CDs and DVDs laying around, burned with the stuff I created and saved.  I don't have a HD space issue (I have a 250 gig HD on my main computer and 80 gigs on my laptop), rather, this zipping idea is geared for "back-up" purposes...... just in case. 

Now, with your experience, I'm beginning to wonder if it'll be worth zipping..... or maybe I should just continue to save (back-up) my stuff on discs in the usual "uncompressed" natural format (drag and drop).

Thanks for the input..... now I need to examine this a bit further......

Pandorian

I forgot to add that the poser files I had zipped and burned to CD were compressed in Poser before being zipped.  I don't know if that made a difference or not, but I've never tried it again.

You could always compress your files in Poser and save them on an external hard drive without zipping them.

Get a bigger external hd.  Lacie makes a portable USB drive that's 80GB and inexpensive.  I have that plus a 40GB, 120GB, and 250GB for various large project storage.  I also burn DVDs exclusively (what are these 'CD' thingies people keep talking about?). ;)  The ONLY time that I EVER write a CD is when it is an application ISO (say, Carrara 5 Pro download disc).

adp001 is absolutely correct.  Watch making those 2GB zip files containing thousands of files - one error equals all lost.  Better to just extend storage - I mean there are 400GB drives out there already - external even (for about $250 - a steal if you ask me).

the method used to create a zip file is lossless so there should be no risk of data corruption . Poser 5 started using compressed files to save space.

with the cost of cd media I would burn two copies of any backups for archive purposes, and use the read after write verification  when burning .

It's not data corruption within the zip (or because of the zip), but because of any number of other reasons.  I've been bitten by this on several occasions - either a very old CD/DVD which has gone bad or bad reads/writes (and I always did verification).  Stuff happens and zip files are no less susceptible to storage corruption than any other file - just that it will take more of them with it.  If you have ten thousand Poser files in a zip and there is one error - all gone.  If you have them as individual files, one error may affect one or several files, but not all of them.  You've been warned. :)

The problem is the bad quality of CD/DVD's. For my photos I store anything twice on the same media. So, if a medium has gone defective over time, there is a very good chance that I can recover the second copy from the same media.

And yes, "spreading" is the best solution to prevent data-loss (HD,DVD,NET), IMHO.

Last month I saw some several hundred original photos from 1950. I really wonder if the photos I shot yesterday have a chance to live for the next 50 years...

Everyone, thanks for all the info.  Yes, I currently keep at "least" two sets of backups in various formats (DVD, CD, and/or external HD), been doing so for years, only they were all "uncompressed".  Needless to say, that makes for a lot discs laying around and a lot less space on the external.  And yes, I agree about NOT compressing files "collectively" but rather individually.... makes a lot of sense.   I may just end up using my double density DVDs (8.5 gigs) to store an uncompressed format version, and use the regular DVD's and external HD to store a compressed (zipped) format version. 

Thanks again for all your help/suggestions..... it's most appreciated.

Pandorian

one error equals all lost not necessarily so. IMO any competent unzip software should be able to recover from simple errors -- i use winrar for my zipping needs, and a media error means one file lost, not the whole zip. if your zip software can't do it (and you don't want to switch) there are also zip recovery tools that can often recover most of the archive. in combination with double backups, with verification turned on, that's a pretty safe system. i store hundreds of thousands of images that way, and i can't actually remember the last time i lost something completely. sometimes it's also the drive that's the problem -- my laptop combo drive comes up with more errors than my external plextor. if you come across an error, first try the disk in another drive. and last but not least -- not all media and drives (including their low level software) are created of equal quality. read reviews by hardware gurus, and buy accordingly.