• data archiving is the process of collecting and storing a group of files and directories into one file
  • data compression is the act of shrinking the size of a file

Formats

Official Name

Archive

Compression

Platform

File Extension

Description

Java Archive Formats
(JAR - WAR - EAR)

cross platform

.jar, .war, .ear

an archive file for java applications

ISO Image

cross platform

.iso

archive file that contains an identical copy (or image) of data found on an optical disc, like a CD or DVD

Tape Archive

UNIX-like

.tar

a common archive format used on Unix-like systems

generally used in conjunction with compressors such as gzip, bzip2, compress or xz to create .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.Z or tar.xz files

cpio

UNIX-like

.cpio

gzip

UNIX-like

.gz

GNU Zip, the primary compression format used by Unix-like systems

Apple Disk iMaGe (DMG)

macOS

.dmg

Supports “Internet-enabled” disk images, which, once downloaded, are automatically decompressed, mounted, have the contents extracted, and thrown away.

tar with gzip

UNIX-like

.tar.gz

The “tarball” format combines tar archives with a file-based compression scheme (usually gzip)