Compressing ZFS File Systems
Compression is the process where data is stored using less disk space. The following compression algorithms are available:
-
gzip
- standard UNIX compression. -
gzip-
N - selects a specific gzip level.gzip-1
provides the fastest gzip compression.gzip-9
provides the best data compression.gzip-6
is the default. -
lz4
- provides better compression with lower CPU overhead -
lzjb
- optimized for performance while providing decent compression -
zle
- zero length encoding is useful for datasets with large blocks of zeros
Note:
Currently, neitherlz4
or gzip
compression is supported on root pools.
You can choose a specific compression algorithm by setting the compression ZFS property. To use the LZ4 algorithm, use a command like the following:
$ zfs set compress=lz4 pool/fs