When I used **RAR**, I had an option to add **some extra recovery data** in order to be able to cope with a **not-perfect medium** (think floppy disks). It saved my day several times, specially when dealing with old CDs (scratched or when the reflective layer was damaged with bubbles).

I also used [Parchive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive "Parity archive volume set") to redistribute several CDs with a "parity" one in a manner not unlike RAID.

So, in the era of DVDs, external HDD and **Flash storage** : 

1. Is it **still worth it ?**
2. Is it only available as a external package like Parchive or only with RAR since [various better *compression* formats exists](https://serverfault.com/questions/5230/which-archive-compression-format "SF: Which archive/compression format ?") ?

**I don't want a complete solution** like the ones asked [here](https://serverfault.com/questions/10625/how-do-you-handle-data-archiving), [here](https://serverfault.com/questions/9455/good-backup-archiving-software) or [here](https://serverfault.com/questions/8520/data-backup-redundancy-backups), just **ideally** something as **lightweight** as **gunzip** in usage (stdin/stdout)