Linux archive solution

[Aspect11]

So I want to store a lot of files from my Windows machine to my Linux server over the network where I can easily access them through a share which is set-up on my Linux server and is accessible through my Windows machine.So what I am asking is, which is the best file format for this (is it tar or zip or any other format) and what would be the best software to easily communicate between the two devices?

 

Thanks, if you need any more information just ask!

[leadeater]

You don't need to zip/tar the files unless you are archiving them and not using for general access. For either archive or general access you'll want to setup SAMBA on the Linux server to create SMB shares and map those on the Windows computer.

[Aspect11]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You don't need to zip/tar the files unless you are archiving them and not using for general access. For either archive or general access you'll want to setup SAMBA on the Linux server to create SMB shares and map those on the Windows computer.

Yeah I have setup a SAMBA share on the server to link to my Windows machine, but i was just asking would it better to zip the files to save space and if yes what software would be the best for linux.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, DerpDiamonds1 said:

Yeah I have setup a SAMBA share on the server to link to my Windows machine, but i was just asking would it better to zip the files to save space and if yes what software would be the best for linux.

Why not put the share on a BTRFS filesystem and enable compression at the filesystem level? 

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Compression

[WereCatf]

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Why not put the share on a BTRFS filesystem and enable compression at the filesystem level? 

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Compression

I heartily echo @leadeater's suggestion there; BTRFS's filesystem-level compression is entirely, wholly transparent to any applications, meaning that you don't lose anything by enabling it. It's literally fire-and-forget, while you then continue to reap the benefits from it afterwards.

[Aspect11]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Why not put the share on a BTRFS filesystem and enable compression at the filesystem level? 

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Compression

That is because I have other software like a security and surveillance system on there that would be affected if I switch file systems. I have heard of it and would like to use it but it would just not work on the server unfortunately.

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, DerpDiamonds1 said:

That is because I have other software like a security and surveillance system on there that would be affected if I switch file systems. I have heard of it and would like to use it but it would just not work on the server unfortunately.

You could just use multiple partitions and have compression disabled on one, also if a file isn't compressible it's skipped automatically. Edit: I mean it's Linux, you can mount and partition devices however you like, need to mix ext3/4 and btrfs on the same dev? You can.

[Aspect11]

28 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You could just use multiple partitions and have compression disabled on one, also if a file isn't compressible it's skipped automatically. Edit: I mean it's Linux, you can mount and partition devices however you like, need to mix ext3/4 and btrfs on the same dev? You can.

Oh okay thanks, I will look into it. It seems that BTRFS is going to replace etx4 anyway.

[Acedia]

On 5/25/2019 at 1:07 PM, DerpDiamonds1 said:

So what I am asking is, which is the best file format for this (is it tar or zip or any other format) and what would be the best software to easily communicate between the two devices?

How are you transfering data on it? If you want a simple daily backup you can set up an robocopy script from task scheduler. You can even just copy the new files and even have them zipped if you really want to.

If you want real backups you can set up Veeam Agent for Windows for free.