TAR.7Z (T7Z) to CPIO Converter
Convert your tar.7z files to cpio online & free
tar.7z
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How to convert TAR.7Z to CPIO
Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.
Choose cpio or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)
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About formats
TAR.7Z is a compound archive format that combines the TAR) container with 7-Zip's LZMA/LZMA2 compression. The TAR layer bundles multiple files into a single stream preserving Unix metadata (permissions, ownership, symlinks), while the outer 7Z compression applies LZMA or LZMA2 to the entire stream. This combination leverages LZMA's superior compression ratios — typically 30-70% better than gzip — making TAR.7Z one of the most space-efficient archive formats for Unix-style backups and software distribution. The solid-stream approach means compression can exploit redundancy across all archived files rather than compressing each file independently. One advantage is maximum compression density: the TAR.7Z combination often produces the smallest archives among common Unix archive+compression pairings. Broad tool support is another strength — tar and 7-Zip are available on all major platforms, and many modern tar implementations can create and extract TAR.7Z archives directly with the appropriate flag. The format is popular for distributing large source code trees and backup archives where minimizing transfer size justifies the additional compression time.
CPIO (Copy In, Copy Out) is a Unix archive format dating to the PWB/UNIX system at AT&T Bell Labs in 1977, predating even the tar format. The name describes the tool's original operation: copying files in to an archive and out from an archive. CPIO stores files sequentially with per-file headers containing the filename, inode information, permissions, ownership, timestamps, and file size, followed by the file data itself. The format exists in several variants: the original binary format, the POSIX.1-defined octet-oriented (ODC) format, the SVR4 newc format with expanded device and inode fields, and the CRC variant that adds checksum verification. Unlike tar, CPIO reads the list of files to archive from standard input, making it naturally composable with find and other Unix utilities through pipes. One advantage is faithful Unix metadata preservation — CPIO records device numbers, inode information, and hard link relationships with higher fidelity than early tar implementations, making it suitable for system-level backups and device file archiving. The format's central role in Linux package management is another practical significance: the RPM package format uses CPIO as its internal payload container, meaning every RPM-based Linux installation relies on CPIO extraction. While tar has become more common for general archiving, CPIO persists in system administration, initramfs images, and package management infrastructure.