docs: more about compression

docs/internals.rst

@@ -382,10 +382,25 @@ representation of the repository id.
 Compression
 -----------
 
-|project_name| currently always pipes all data through a zlib compressor which
-supports compression levels 0 (no compression, fast) to 9 (high compression, slow).
+|project_name| supports the following compression methods:
 
-See ``borg create --help`` about how to specify the compression level and its default.
+- none (no compression, pass through data 1:1)
+- lz4 (low compression, but super fast)
+- zlib (level 1-9, level 1 is low, level 9 is high compression)
+- lzma (level 0-9, level 0 is low, level 9 is high compression.
+
+Speed:  none > lz4 > zlib > lzma
+Compression: lzma > zlib > lz4 > none
+
+The overall speed of course also depends on the speed of your target storage.
+If that is slow, using a higher compression level might yield better overall
+performance. You need to experiment a bit. Maybe just watch your CPU load, if
+that is relatively low, increase compression until 1 core is 70-100% loaded.
 
-Note: zlib level 0 creates a little bit more output data than it gets as input,
-due to zlib protocol overhead.
+Be careful, higher zlib and especially lzma compression levels might take a
+lot of resources (CPU and memory).
+
+Compression is applied after deduplication, thus using different compression
+methods in one repo does not influence deduplication.
+
+See ``borg create --help`` about how to specify the compression level and its default.

docs/quickstart.rst

@@ -89,6 +89,29 @@ certain number of old archives::
     # and 6 monthly archives.
     borg prune -v $REPOSITORY --keep-daily=7 --keep-weekly=4 --keep-monthly=6
 
+.. backup_compression:
+
+Backup compression
+------------------
+
+Default is no compression, but we support different methods with high speed
+or high compression:
+
+If you have a quick repo storage and you want a little compression:
+
+    $ borg create --compression lz4 /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+If you have a medium fast repo storage and you want a bit more compression (N=0..9):
+
+    $ borg create --compression zlib,N /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+If you have a very slow repo storage and you want high compression (N=0..9):
+
+    $ borg create --compression lzma,N /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+You'll need to experiment a bit to find the best compression for your use case.
+Keep an eye on CPU load and throughput.
+
 .. _encrypted_repos:
 
 Repository encryption

docs/usage.rst

@@ -76,8 +76,12 @@ Resource Usage
 |project_name| might use a lot of resources depending on the size of the data set it is dealing with.
 
 CPU: it won't go beyond 100% of 1 core as the code is currently single-threaded.
+     Especially higher zlib and lzma compression uses significant amounts of CPU
+     cycles.
 
 Memory (RAM): the chunks index and the files index are read into memory for performance reasons.
+              compression, esp. lzma compression with high levels might need substantial amounts
+              of memory.
 
 Temporary files: reading data and metadata from a FUSE mounted repository will consume about the same space as the
                  deduplicated chunks used to represent them in the repository.
@@ -175,6 +179,18 @@ Examples
     # Backup a raw device (must not be active/in use/mounted at that time)
     $ dd if=/dev/sda bs=10M | borg create /mnt/backup::my-sda -
 
+    # No compression (default)
+    $ borg create /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+    # Super fast, low compression
+    $ borg create --compression lz4 /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+    # Less fast, higher compression (N = 0..9)
+    $ borg create --compression zlib,N /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
+    # Even slower, even higher compression (N = 0..9)
+    $ borg create --compression lzma,N /mnt/backup::repo ~
+
 
 .. include:: usage/extract.rst.inc