The ZIP file container format is an open archive format for compressed or uncompressed data. These archives usually have the file name extension .zip. The file format and the compression technique "Deflate" are in the public domain and have therefore gained a world-wide distribution and significance.

 ZIP file format
 There are a few ZIP format versions: e.g PKZIP 2.04g (1994), and PKZIP 4.5 (2001). Both have been developed by the inventor of the ZIP compression, PKWARE (Phil Katz). Other software manufacturers make use of this format, e.g. the well-known program WinZip.

 Z-DBackup uses the newer ZIP format 4.5, which has almost no restriction for the number of files or archive size (ca. 2⁶⁴ files and 2⁶⁴ bytes per file). Z-DBackup supports archives with up to 500,000 or 1,000,000 files depending on the settings (350,000 files when the backup method ZIP file format is set).

Our own format ZDB+ supports up to 1,000,000 files. This file format still uses the ZIP container format to store data but extends the standard ZIP format with own features and is thus not compatible to most ZIP programs.

  Some freeware ZIP programs and older WinZip versions (before version 9) can only use the old ZIP format 2.04g and are therefore not compatible to the Z-DBackup professional version.

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