vax/vms file archival ideas and suggestions

Hi all, I must be missing something, but I have not found a good way to preserve a bunch of vax/vms files. I've looked at VMSZip, Gzip, VMSTar, etc, and I must be missing something. Here is what I am trying to do: Before my vax finally dies, I want to take the hundred or so TK50s I have and restore them to the hard drive and then move them to PC-land for long term storage. This is halfway done with the tapes that are easily readable. I now have a bunch of directories, one for each tape, with files in them on the VAX. So the tree is only two levels deep on the vax. The files are pretty mixed: backup files, savesets, distributions, text files, etc. Right now the files amount to about 2Gb. Now, the environment is: VAX 3100-30 with SCSI external. THis is where I hooked up the TK70 (TZ30?) to read the tapes. I have network access and can get to it via FTP and TELNET from elsewhere, namely my PC. I also have a bunch of different SCSI tape drives, 8mm, 4mm, 9 track, etc. So, I could transfer all the files if I could containerize (zip) them. Do I try to Zip them somehow (what program) and FTP them, or do I just write them to duplicate disks/tapes and throw them on a shelf, hoping I have a machine to read them in the future? I'm usually pretty good with this stuff, having been around the VMS world for a few decades, but I just have this memory block, or the blinders are on. Any suggestions? Thanks Joe Heck