We have all been there. In the heat of the moment, what is that command again? And what options go along with it? Yes, there is even a XKCD comic (#1168) about this very phenomenon!
Here is how I will remember forevermore how to split an archive and here is where I shall note it. Also, this is not with Tar.
Split a 7z archive
For the folder red which is 3.1GB in size, I want to split it into nice 1GB archives. To split, I use this command:
$ 7z -v1g a -mx0 red-archive.7z red
- -v1g: This specifies the volume size of each archive after splitting. The options support one of
b k m g(bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes). - a: Add files to archive
- -mx0: This sets the compression level. mx0 = no compression so files will simply be archived. Levels are 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 where level 9 is “Ultra” compression, i.e. the most.
- red-archive.7z red: Specify the name of the archive
red-archive.7zand then specify the source:red.
The resulting archive files are split and named sequentially. In my example, I ended up with three archives where the first two are of equal size as per my specification.
-rw-r--r-- 1 cybrkyd cybrkyd 1073741824 May 21 10:08 red-archive.7z.001
-rw-r--r-- 1 cybrkyd cybrkyd 1073741824 May 21 10:08 red-archive.7z.002
-rw-r--r-- 1 cybrkyd cybrkyd 912875121 May 21 10:08 red-archive.7z.003
Extract a split 7z archive
To extract a split archive collection, you only need to extract the first volume but ensure that the other parts are also in the same location.
$ 7z x red-archive.7z.001
The files are now extracted.