# Parallel compression pigz

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/parallel-compression-pigz/6733>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** performance\
**Created:** [May 8, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/parallel-compression-pigz/6733 "2019-05-08T18:41:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/parallel-compression-pigz/6733/1 "2019-05-08T18:41:53Z")

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There was a discussion sometime ago about perhaps enabling pigz (parallel gzip) with Slicer. [How to unset default 'compress' option during save - #7 by pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-unset-default-compress-option-during-save/4488/7)

At the time, question was lack of a windows port. I see there is one:  
@pieper would this help?  
[https://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/pigz-for-windows.html](https://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/pigz-for-windows.html)

> **[kjk/pigz](https://github.com/kjk/pigz)**
>
> A Windows port of pigz - a parallel implementation of gzip for modern multi-processor, multi-core machines.

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 2:51am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/parallel-compression-pigz/6733/2 "2019-05-09T02:51:45Z")

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It is a complicated topic. Such changes should happen at lower level, in ITK and there are plans for it, see [https://discourse.itk.org/t/adding-parallel-compression-to-metaio/1835/15](https://discourse.itk.org/t/adding-parallel-compression-to-metaio/1835/15).

Unfortunately, for me it seems that the discussion does not seem to converge to a reasonable solution (see my comments there).

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**Author:** ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 5:08am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/parallel-compression-pigz/6733/3 "2019-05-09T05:08:22Z")

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That’s unfortunate. Breaking the nrrd compatibility between itk and non-itk based programs would be a pretty bad idea.