fsarchiver takes a very long time to analyze the filesystem

Deses · 09-03-2023, 07:40 AM

I'm imaging my drives for a backup before I remove them from my home server and I'm using fsarchiver to do this task, as my drives are all formated with ext4.

The command I used is

Code:

sudo fsarchiver -j4 -v -Z 18 savefs /mnt/external/mydata.fsa /dev/sdd1

/dev/sdd1 is a 1TB drive and it took about an hour to analyze the filesystem. Is this normal? Can something be done to speed up this part of the process?

I have a 2TB and 8TB drives that I also want to image and I'm worried the 8 TB drive will take +8 hours to analyze.

Thank you.

syg00 · 09-03-2023, 08:50 AM

Short answer - yes.

Longer answer - checksumming and aggressive compression have a cost. So, yes. I happen to like fsarchiver for one-off full filesystem backup, but:
- I don't care how long it takes, and
- I don't use aggressive compression.

You make your choices, you pay the piper ... :shrug:

pan64 · 09-03-2023, 09:12 AM

yes, it will take a lot of time. Actually it may depend on the number of files and probably better to do a quick cleanup - if there were anything to skip.
(huge amount of small files will be processed slower)

Deses · 09-03-2023, 09:18 AM

Alright, thank you for confirming! I have some more questions now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

I don't use aggressive compression.

How much compression do you recommend?

Is there a way to skip compressing already compressed files like media files and compressed files like 7z and the likes? That might save some time.

Either way I have time, I don't mind waiting but I was wondering if I there was anything possible to sped up the process.

pan64 · 09-03-2023, 09:45 AM

if you don't want to compress you can use rsync or any other backup tool.

Deses · 09-03-2023, 03:15 PM

Update: The disk analysis process doesn't took more with a bigger drive. My 8TB drive got analyzed instantly.

I also dropped the compression to -Z 11 and it's a bit faster now. Loving fsarchiver!