Some suggestions for using rar (or Winrar, if you translate the command line switches to the GUI equivalents) to backup folders. This are the “must” options:
| -ma5 | RAR5.0 Format |
| -m5 | Compression (0: store, 1: min … 3: default … 5: max), I would use -m5 |
| -htb | BLAKE2 checksum (CRC32 is much to unreliable) |
| -qo+ | “Quick open”, some additional data to open large rar archives quicker |
| -ts | “Time stamp” in highest precission and all types |
| -rr1 | “Recovery Record” 1% additional data to recover from up to 1% corruption in rar archives |
| -hppwd | Encrypt headers and data with pwd |
The following options are sensible but you have to check your use case. If you either make one time backups you would go add and lock: “rar a -k …”, or you make incremental backups, then it is update and keep versions: “rar u -ver3 …”
| -r | Recurse into subdirectories |
| -ep1 | Remove base paths |
| -ow -ol -oh | Save file security data, handle links |
| -k | Lock archive (not with u) |
| -u (a -u = u) | Update archive (not with -k) |
| -ver3 | Versions of changed files to keep 3 (not with -k) |
| -v5g | Split archive in 5 gigabyte large chunks (not with u and therefore -ver) |
