Compression comparison

7z

/tmp|⇒ /usr/bin/time -l 7z a -t7z -m0=lzma -mx=9 -mfb=64 -md=32m -ms=on bitcoin-blocks.7z ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoi
n/blocks

      412.70 real       379.01 user         7.50 sys
 395800576  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
     97211  page reclaims
        35  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
      1022  voluntary context switches
   1049362  involuntary context switches

7z defaults

/usr/bin/time -l 7z a bitcoin-blocks-defaults.7z ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks

      290.89 real       339.52 user         6.77 sys
 582500352  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
    142760  page reclaims
         2  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
      1562  voluntary context switches
    916172  involuntary context switches

bzip2

/usr/bin/time -l gtar -cjf bitcoin-blocks.bz2 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks

      307.17 real       125.37 user         3.17 sys
   8310784  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
      2808  page reclaims
        18  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
     11937  voluntary context switches
    300531  involuntary context switches

gistfile1.txt

/usr/bin/time -l zip -r bitcoin-blocks-defaults.zip ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks

       30.24 real        25.37 user         1.04 sys
   1273856  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
       320  page reclaims
         3  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
       373  voluntary context switches
     49418  involuntary context switches

gtar

 /usr/bin/time -l gtar -czf bitcoin-blocks.gz ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks
 
       156.60 real        41.80 user         1.97 sys
   1294336  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
      1054  page reclaims
        19  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
     11630  voluntary context switches
     97954  involuntary context switches

summary

$ du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks

598M

$ du -sh bitcoin-blocks* | sort -h
416M    bitcoin-blocks.7z
422M    bitcoin-blocks-defaults.7z
464M    bitcoin-blocks.bz2
464M    bitcoin-blocks.zip
465M    bitcoin-blocks-defaults.zip
465M    bitcoin-blocks.gz

zip

/usr/bin/time -l zip -9 -r bitcoin-blocks.zip ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/blocks

      70.23 real        62.38 user         1.51 sys
   1253376  maximum resident set size
         0  average shared memory size
         0  average unshared data size
         0  average unshared stack size
       315  page reclaims
         3  page faults
         0  swaps
         0  block input operations
         0  block output operations
         0  messages sent
         0  messages received
         0  signals received
       715  voluntary context switches
    136825  involuntary context switches