compsize.8

.TH compsize 8 2017-09-04 btrfs btrfs
.SH NAME
compsize \- calculate compression ratio of a set of files on btrfs
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B compsize
.I file-or-dir
[
.I file-or-dir
\&... ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B compsize
takes a list of files on a btrfs filesystem (recursing directories)
and measures used compression types and the effective compression ratio.
Besides compression, \fBcompsize\fR shows the effect of reflinks (\fIcp
--reflink\fR, snapshots, deduplication), and certain types of btrfs waste.
.P
The program gives a report similar to:
.br
Processed 90319 files.
.br
Type       Perc     Disk Usage   Uncompressed Referenced
.br
TOTAL       79%      1.4G         1.8G         1.9G
.br
none       100%      1.0G         1.0G         1.0G
.br
lzo         53%      446M         833M         843M
.P
The fields above are:
.TP
.B Type
compression algorithm
.TP
.B Perc
disk usage/uncompressed (compression ratio)
.TP
.B Disk Usage
blocks on the disk; this is what storing these files actually costs you
(save for RAID considerations)
.TP
.B Uncompressed
uncompressed extents; what you would need without compression \- includes
deduplication savings and pinned extent waste
.TP
.B Referenced
apparent file sizes (sans holes); this is what a traditional filesystem
that supports holes and efficient tail packing, or
.IR "tar -S" ,
would need to store these files
.P
Let's see this on an example: a file 128K big is stored as a single extent A
which compressed to a single 4K page.  It then receives a write of 32K at
offset 32K, which also compressed to a single 4K page, stored as extent B.
.P
The file now appears as:
.br
         +-------+-------+---------------+
.br
extent A | used  | waste | used          |
.br
         +-------+-------+---------------+
.br
extent B         | used  |
.br
                 +-------+
.P
The "waste" inside extent A can't be gotten rid until the whole extent is
rewritten (for example by \fIdefrag\fR).  If compressed, the whole extent
needs to be read every time that part of the file is being read, thus the
"waste" is still required.
.P
In this case, we have: \fBDisk Usage\fR: 8KB, \fBUncompressed\fR: 160K,
\fBReferenced\fR: 128K.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR -b / --bytes
Show raw byte counts rather than human-friendly sizes.
.TP
.BR -x / --one-file-system
Skip files and directories on different file systems.
.SH SIGNALS
.TP
.BR USR1
Displays partial data for files processed so far.
.SH CAVEATS
Recently written files may show as not taking any space until they're
actually allocated and compressed; this happens once they're synced or
on natural writeout, typically on the order of 30 seconds.
.P
The ioctls used by this program require root.
.P
Inline extents are considered to be always unique, even if they share
the same bytes on the disk.
.P
This program doesn't currently support filesystems above 8TB on 32-bit
machines \*- but neither do other btrfs tools.