Is it possible to compress a large Unix file (16GB), then FTP it to a Wintel machine running XP then uncompress?

I have already attempted to FTP the 16GB file but it stops at 4GB because XP FAT32 formtted drives will only allow 4GB file sizes.

The 16GB file in Unix(Solaris) compresses to less than 4GB but
NTFS formatted dirves will allow unlimited file sizes.

Ideally I would like to compress the Unix file to less than 4GB, FTP it to XP, then uncompress on an NTFS formatted drive.

Can this be done?

Not too many file types can compress from 16GB to 4GB. Generally we don't see four to 1 compression ratios.

With regard to compression utlilites, there are many utilities that will compress on UNIX in a format that can decompress on XP.

I use gunzip on UNIX platforms and everyones favorite winzip on XP, both ways (compress or decompress either way). Works perfect.

Possibly a rar or ace archive that could break the large file down in to several smaller files and then recompile it back on the windows side.

Just a slight correction....

You would use gunzip for uncompressing a file, you would use gzip for compression.