Gene Heskett <gene_heskett AT iolinc DOT net> writes:

> >This is the wrong question. Gzip decompression is way faster than
> >compression, whereas bzip2 decompression is as slow as bzip2
> >compression.
> >
> >Hence "Can you tolerate the slow restore when you are in hurry to
> > get a broken machine up again?"
> 
> Again, on a decent machine, the decompress rate is still faster than 
> the data rate actually coming into the pipe from the media.  Here, 
> in decompressing a .bz2 kernel source image, I estimate the bunzip2 
> thruput to be around 2x the medias output where the media is DDS2 
> tape with a 390kb data rate.  With data coming from one of the 
> latest gee-whizbang multimeg a second drives, I could see where 
> that might be a factor.

OK, I was thinking about DLT7000 (5MB/s) and SuperDLT (11MB/s).

Unfortunately I currently cannot create numbers on bzip2
compression/decompression time ...

> OTOH, how often would that inconvienience actually occur?  Recovery, 
> while it should be done as quickly as possible, isn´t such a part 
> of the normal daily routine that one has to optimize it to the 
> lowest common denominator just to accumulate saved time.

Restoring some particular files (due to user error) happens about once
a week. Here decompression time isn't critical unless you hit a level0
backup.

        Sven