Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Duefaku]

I like to use WinRar to back up my game the first time by right clicking and selecting "Add to Dwarf Fortress x.xx.xx.rar." I then drag the folder into the rar file when I want to next back it up. My question is: could this cause any instabilities? I know you're not supposed to overwrite the DF folder with another one, but I haven't had any problems with this so far.

I wasn't sure of the right board to post this in, but I figured I would put it in this one because you guys are quite good at the game technical wise.

[Baccar Wozat]

Many compression algorithms are subject to a very small amount of instability, due to the nature of reading data from magnetic media.

Adding files to a RAR archive has the potential to cause havoc to all of the files. If the archive becomes corrupt, the entire thing is no good.

In any case, keeping several separate RAR files will not consume very much extra drive space, and is certainly better than putting all your eggs in one basket.

Personally, I prefer to keep extra save backups on a 64GB flash drive, uncompressed (I've got two for DF: one for saves and DF installs, and another for YouTube Let's Plays).

[Duefaku]

Right, but is it any more unstable than any other file being overwritten like that?

[i2amroy]

Right, but is it any more unstable than any other file being overwritten like that?

The chance of corruption exists any time you add files to a rar or zip file without uncompressing and then recompressing. In the event of said corruption the entire file would become worthless. If you really want to store your saves in this method I would suggest uncompressing them completely, adding the files, and then recompressing them.