I tired to use zstd on a 5400 RPM. Takes forever and is basically melting my CPU. Is it possible to change to LZ4 after I have made a backup job in the web version?
What does this mean?
zstd is pretty fast and efficient at low compression settings.
You cannot change compression of existing chunks. But you can change compression level of new chunks. see -zstd-level parameter. Set it to one or two, or even zero.
Sorry I should have been more clear. I am using the web version. I tried to backup 2TB of data with zstd compression in Duplicacy to a 5400 RPM external disk. It basically took “forever” (Total running time: 1 day 02:44:47).
So I am wondering if I can change the compression level after the initial backup. Note I am using the web version of Duplicacy.
I understand, but if you are saying it was maxing out your CPU the HDD speed should not have mattered. Also, after initial backup, subsequent backups woudl take significantly less time – only added and/or changed since previous backup data will get compressed and uploaded.
You cannot change compression settings of data chunks already uploaded. But it’s not necessary either – you have already spent that one day. Data is already uploaded.
You can, however, change compression settings for the chunks that will get uploaded from now on by adding the parameter I linked above to your backup command. Doing so may not be worth the effort though, as subsequent backups are incremental in nature, and should take much fewer resources and time.
“Web version” is just a frontend for a CLI engine, a fancy scheduler. You can click on the backup job parameters in the schedule and add that flag.
Thanks for clarifying 
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