Tar unlike zip allow you to keep permissions. As such it is the defacto utility for making backups. Also if you can keep your user UIDs consistent across environments, tar allows for quick disaster recovery.
Backing Data
Tar can be used to backup an entire directory keeping all permissions and users accounts intact. The trick is to use sudo to keep the permissions intact.
# To tar the directory sudo tar -zcvpf tarfile.tar.gz ./folder # To untar and gunzip the file in one command sudo tar -zxvpf tarfile.tar.gz # Encrypting a tar ...