WinRAR 5.70 Review

[jasonX]

Comparison of WinRAR ver5.70 to alternatives (ZIP format)

To compare the performance of WinRAR ver5.70 to other popular archiver alternatives in the market a rough data comparison has been prepared. 

For a smaller sized archive, the "Manufacturing" folder (T:\WinRAR570_Files for Test\Docs\Manufacturing) was chosen. The size of the folder (and contents) is 2.64 MB. The archive type selected is "ZIP" and compression method selected is   set at "normal". Dictionary size at 32 KB. Archive is password protected and AES-256 encrypted. See images below.

7Zip Portable version 19.00

Ashampoo ZIP Pro 2

Bandizip version 6.15 Portable

PeaZip version 6.7.1 Portable

PowerArchiver 2018 Professional (version 18.00.58)

WinRAR version 5.60

WinRAR version 5.70

Comparison data between the alternative archivers versus WinRAR version 5.70 is shown below. The smallest archive size is the archive made with WinRAR version 5.60 and WinRAR version 5.70 both at 2318 KB. The largest archive size was created with Ashampoo ZIP Pro 2 at 2324 KB. The differences between the archive sizes can be waived off as minimal though. Creation time was pegged at >1 minute on all archivers including WinRAR v5.70. 

For a larger sized archive, the "4gb size" folder (T:\WinRAR570_Files for Test\4gb size) was chosen. The size of the folder (and contents) is 2.86 GB. The archive type selected is "ZIP" and compression method selected is   set at "normal". Dictionary size at 32 KB. Archive is password protected and AES-256 encrypted. See images below.

7Zip Portable version 19.00

Ashampoo ZIP Pro 2

Bandizip version 6.15 Portable

PeaZip version 6.7.1 Portable

PowerArchiver 2018 Professional (version 18.00.58)

WinRAR version 5.60

WinRAR version 5.70

Comparison data between the alternative archivers versus WinRAR version 5.70 is shown below. The smallest files size is the archive made with PowerArchiver 2018 Pro (version 18.00.58) at 2819232 KB. The biggest archive was made with Ashampoo ZIP Pro 2 at 2822055 KB while WinRAR version 5.70's archive size is 2820418 KB (the same as previous version WinRAR v5.60). The differences between the archive sizes are minimal. 

For creation time there was a significant difference seen as the alternative archivers was created from 2 - 3 minutes maximum with PowerArchiver 2018 Pro (version 18.00.58) as the fastest at 2 minutes. BandiZIP version 6.15 Portable's creation time is second at 2.2 minutes. The slowest was the archive created with WinRAR version 5.60 which took 12 minutes to finish. WinRAR version 5.70 was at 9 minutes. WinRAR's data is way out of the average of the alternative archivers. 

Comparison of WinRAR ver5.70 to PowerArchiver 2018 Pro (RAR format)

Comparison data between the alternative archiver PowerArchiver 2018 Pro (version 18.00.58) versus WinRAR version 5.70 using RAR archive type (format) is shown below. 

The same "Manufacturing" folder (T:\WinRAR570_Files for Test\Docs\Manufacturing) was chosen again. The size of the folder (and contents) is 2.64 MB. The archive type selected is "RAR" and compression method selected is   set at "normal". Dictionary size at 32 KB. Archive is password protected and AES-256 encrypted. 

"Manufacturing_WinRAR570_rar.rar" created with WinRAR v5.70 is the smallest in size (at 2289 KB) as compared to "Manufacturing_PA2018Pro_rar.rar" (PowerArchiver 2018 Pro) which is 2711 KB. Both archive creation time clocked at <1 minute. See RAR archive comparison data below. 

 

For a large size archive, the same "4gb size" folder (T:\WinRAR570_Files for Test\4gb size) was chosen again. The size of the folder (and contents) is 2.86 GB. The archive type selected is "RAR" and compression method selected is   set at "normal". Dictionary size at 32 KB. Archive is password protected and AES-256 encrypted. 

The archive created with WinRAR v5.70 (4gb ISO_WinRAR570_rar.rar) is the smallest at 2820418 KB as compared with "4gb ISO_PA2018Pro_rar.rar" (created with (PowerArchiver 2018 Pro) at 3007641 KB. A difference of 238850 KB is present.

The creation time shows a very significant difference as WinRAR v5.70 (4gb ISO_WinRAR570_rar.rar) clocked at 8 minutes way behind PowerArchiver 2018 Pro's (4gb ISO_PA2018Pro_rar.rar) 1.5 minutes. This is the same behavior as that of the ZIP archive comparison data shown previously. See RAR archive comparison data below.