# Reduce local disk space needs by not (redundantly) gzipping backups

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/reduce-local-disk-space-needs-by-not-redundantly-gzipping-backups/245763
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** backups
**Created:** [November 16, 2022, 12:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reduce-local-disk-space-needs-by-not-redundantly-gzipping-backups/245763 "2022-11-16T12:38:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

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### Author: ![Ed\_S](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ed_s/32/134015_2.png) [@Ed\_S](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ed_S)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 12:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reduce-local-disk-space-needs-by-not-redundantly-gzipping-backups/245763/1 "2022-11-16T12:38:03Z")

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The backup process creates a tar file and then applies gzip to it. There are two types of things in the tar file: an already gzipped sql dump and the contents of uploads (if requested.) In my case every upload file is already compressed: gz, gzip, gif, jpeg, png, zip. So the final gzipping gains only 1% of size.

> [@Unable to rebuild discourse due to no space left on device](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-rebuild-discourse-due-to-no-space-left-on-device/174774/25):
>
> To create a backup you need to have almost twice the size of your database+uploads available to create the backup…

I believe it would be better to demand less free space.

A previous topic from 2016 mentions disabling backup compression, but it looks like the sql dump was at that time not compressed, which shifted the tradeoffs.

[Add option to disable backup compression](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-option-to-disable-backup-compression/37288)

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