Partclone - how to use compression?

[Myrtle]

According to Arch Wiki partclone supports compression. How do I use it though? Project’s website doesn’t even mention it.

[Mirdarthos]

Hi @Myrtle,

I’ve never heard of partclone before, but accoring to the Arch wiki:

With compression

To backup with compression:

$ partclone.ext4 -c -s /dev/sda1 | gzip -c > ~/image_sda1.pcl.gz

Note: For maximum compression use gzip -c9

To restore it:

zcat ~/image_sda1.pcl.gz | partclone.ext4 -r -o /dev/sda1

[Myrtle]

Thanks, I didn’t see this.
It can also be used with zstd if anyone’s interested. Just replace gzip and zcat with zstd and zstdcat.

[Mirdarthos]

You’re welcome!

[Ataraxy]

A pipe is not needed:

partclone.vfat -a1 -cs /dev/sda1 -o /media/space/sda1.partclone.zst -x 'zstd -v -T0 --adapt --long' -L /tmp/partclone

This uses multi-threaded, adaptive compression to maximise bandwidth.

[Mirdarthos]

Thank you!