Tar Faster Using Pigz

Getting Started:

To begin, you will need the following packages installed:

  • tar
  • pigz
  • pv (optional)
Using Pigz With Tar:

Compressing with pigz can be done a couple of different ways:

tar --use-compression-program=pigz -cf yourfile.tar.gz folder1

tar cf - Pictures/ | pigz > pictures.tar.gz

These commands can also be piped to the "pv" program to monitor the progress of the compression.

tar cf - Pictures/ | pigz > pictures.tar.gz | pv