Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Zstd is terrible for archiving since it doesn't even detect corruption. The --check switch described in the manpage as enabling checksums (in a super-confusing way) seems to do absolutely nothing.

You can test by intentionally corrupting a .zstd file that was created with checksums enabled and then watch as zstd happily proceeds to decompress it, without any sort of warning. This is the stuff of nightmares.

After all these years, RAR remains the best option for archiving.



I got "Decoding error (36)" when data was wrong, so --check (enabled by default during compression) is working for me:

  echo 'a b c' > test
  zstd test
  zstdcat test.zst
  sed -i s/a/b/g test.zst # corrupt the file on purpose
  zstdcat test.zst




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: