Safe way 2 backup data? best compression soft?

[ankushkool]

I want to back up my data on external HDD n DVDs.

but i want 2 know that sud i compress de data using winrar or 7zip?
is it true that compressing data increases de chances of de data gettin damaged?

and which software gives de best compression???

thanks in advance

[ThinkFree]

KGB archiver gives the option of best compression but to utilise this, you need to have a very fast computer. Otherwise it would take days to compress/decompress data.
Rar archives in WinRar and .7z archives in 7zip provide good enough compression

[dheeraj_kumar]

WinRAR is always preferred, and 7Z gives a higher compression, but also needs higher CPU usage and higher time to compress and extract.

Compressing data DOES NOT increase chances of getting it damaged. Well, if you have data on several files, even if one is faulty, you can recover the others. But in an archive, if the DVD gets damaged, recovery chances are low. But overall, it doesnt count.

UHARC gives a good compression, but you have to spend like 2 days of compressing to get a good ratio.

And dont put every data into an archive, thats stupid. Compress only the data that will get reduced in size (like documents, html files, etc)

Files like EXE, MP3, MPEG, are all compressed already, you wont get any more if you waste time compressing.

[ankushkool]

^^thanks a lot guys.