# How to unset default 'compress' option during save

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-unset-default-compress-option-during-save/4488>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** file-export\
**Created:** [October 22, 2018, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-unset-default-compress-option-during-save/4488 "2018-10-22T15:37:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

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**Author:** ![ihnorton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/ihnorton/32/9_2.png) [@ihnorton](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/ihnorton)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2018, 1:43pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-unset-default-compress-option-during-save/4488/17 "2018-10-29T13:43:28Z")

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This came up in another thread recently:

> [@Can Slicer load/save to archives instead of folders, on Mac/Windows?](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-slicer-load-save-to-archives-instead-of-folders-on-mac-windows/3785/4):
>
> Also note that volumes get compressed on save by default and for large volumes that can be big. Then the zip (mrb) process re-runs compression of those which is also wasteful. If performance is a big issue for you it’s possible to bypass that.

We could potentially get a big performance boost at minimal file size cost by changing the default gz compression level to 1. In some small-scale tests I did a few months ago, there was a major time cost between high and low settings, for only a tiny compression improvement (e.g. 90-\> 26 MB at level 9 in 34s, vs 90-\>27 MB at level 1 in \<1s). This was only a small test on a few brain MR datasets, but it seems reasonable.

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