I need to make backups and check it!
Thanks for reminder me.
What has changed?

Backups for large sites fails or took's a lot of time even 10h+. Fixing that behaviour we have changed also packing method from .zip to .tar.gz - this is permanent change. Backups on largest sites boost from 10h to 3h.

If you are using linux bash scripts you can use something like tar -zxvf yourfile.tar.gz to unpack it.

In what language you write your program ?

My program is written in .NET and I'm using — I *was* using — the Ionic.Zip library to walk the zip files.

but there is the finish for a windows user…
I am happy to have the ( free) 7-zip on my windos… the tar.gz is unpacked to the tar file …and the tar file unpacked to the backup directory…

Could be a good moment to remember on the backup window on the site manager that there is an easy way to unpack the tar.gz fiels with such 8free) utilities. On Windows there is not the possibility in normal circumstanzes…

I can certainly unpack the tar format — I use WinZip, which supports it. The problem is that this means — currently, for me — unzipping about 9500 files for processing and then deleting them, which is slow, and clutters up my backups or my recycle bin or both.

What I had been doing is using code which allowed me to walk a zip file without unpacking. Faster and cleaner and no unnecessary intermediate files.

It sounds like this change was made because of some very large sites where the backup took 10 hours. Since mine took only about four minutes, it's clear that the sites in question must be very large indeed. Would it be possible either to provide an option for the output or to make the tar format the default only for the very large sites where it matters?

Would it be possible either to provide an option for the output or to make the tar format the default only for the very large sites where it matters?

My votes for this proposal!

We add '.zip' as alternative.

Yes, indeed! That will be much appreciated!

'.zip' format added.

Great! Thanks for this implementation.
I tested it on my priovate sites and it works well and fast.

I changed the handbook too. (http://handbook.wikidot.com/en:site-manager-backup )