Compression
By default, backups and WAL files are archived uncompressed. However, the
Barman Cloud Plugin supports multiple compression algorithms via
barman-cloud-backup and barman-cloud-wal-archive, allowing you to optimize
for space, speed, or a balance of both.
Supported Compression Algorithms
bzip2gziplz4snappyxz(WAL only)zstd(WAL only)
Compression settings for base backups and WAL archives are configured independently. For implementation details, refer to the corresponding API definitions:
important
Compression impacts both performance and storage efficiency. Choose the right algorithm based on your recovery time objectives (RTO), storage capacity, and network throughput.
Compression Benchmark (on MinIO)
| Compression | Backup Time (ms) | Restore Time (ms) | Uncompressed Size (MB) | Compressed Size (MB) | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | 10,927 | 7,553 | 395 | 395 | 1.0:1 |
| bzip2 | 25,404 | 13,886 | 395 | 67 | 5.9:1 |
| gzip | 116,281 | 3,077 | 395 | 91 | 4.3:1 |
| snappy | 8,134 | 8,341 | 395 | 166 | 2.4:1 |
Numbers come from a 2021 Barman proof of concept (EnterpriseDB/barman#344), which predates lz4 support for base backups. lz4 is not yet benchmarked.