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Isn't that why RAR files were so popular for a while? Instead of just zipping up a 500MB file into a 350MB file for faster downloading, the .r01, .r02, etc. wa
by soylentcola 12y ago
Isn't that why RAR files were so popular for a while? Instead of just zipping up a 500MB file into a 350MB file for faster downloading, the .r01, .r02, etc. was perfect for downloading smaller chunks and only needing to find the bits you missed if something went wrong.
I have no idea if that's why it was done that way but it sure seemed to fit well. I'm pretty sure usenet is still a popular way to "pirate" TV shows and movies and such. It's just not as well known since it typically requires you to pay for access these days with most ISPs dropping support (and I doubt they'd allow access to the TV/movie groups anyway).
- cdash 12y agoYeah, not only were they split up into multiple files they used a system to verify there is no corruption and if there is to reconstruct the corrupted files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive
- DougWebb 12y agoOriginally the RAR file format was created to make it easy to put a large amount of data onto floppy disks, before writable CDs were widely available. The individual .r## files were sized to completely fill the disk space, so you didn't have to worry about organizing the files to minimize the number of disks needed. After CD-RW drives became common RAR files were mostly used for uploading and downloading as you describe, to avoid file size caps and to make it somewhat easier to fix corrupted chunks. By the time the data being shared was filling the CDs we had writable DVDs, so RAR wasn't needed to span CDs. Then writable BluRay came around before DVD spanning became necessary.