"tar -cfz" versus "tar cf - | gzip": are they different? (or how to improve a backup)

Posted by I'm Dario on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by I'm Dario
Published on 2010-03-12T11:27:11Z Indexed on 2010/03/12 11:27 UTC
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backup

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tar

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gzip

I want to speed up my backup done with "tar -cfz", the common way to do it. But day by day my backed up files grow so it becomes slower.

I was thinking to take advantage of the several cores available in my server and I was wondering if there is any difference between doing the backup with "tar -cfz" or piping tar to gzip ("tar cf - | gzip").

I guess that there isn't any difference, because the first spawns two processes (tar and gzip), in a similar way like piping it.

If there is not difference, do you know any good alternative to do this, without going incremental? I'm looking at pigz too and it looks fine.

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