Multithreaded support in 7za

According to -m (Set compression Method) switch # ZipMultiThread - 7ZIP manual & documentation, mt defaults to on, so there's no need to specify it at all.

However, 7zip's implementation of the DEFLATE algorithm doesn't support multi-threading!

As you have already discovered,

7za a archive.zip bigfile

only uses one core.

But .zip files compress every file individually. When compressing several files, the multi-threading option compresses one file per core at once.

Try it and you'll see that

7za a archive.zip bigfile1 ... bigfileN

will use all available N cores.

If you want to speed up the compression of a single file, you have two choices:

1. Split up bigfile in chunks.

2. Use a different compression algorithm.

   For example, 7zip's implementation of the BZip2 algorithm supports multi-threading.

   The syntax is:

   7za a -mm=BZip2 archive.zip bigfile
   

Also, the syntax error is caused by your attempt to use the LZM Algorithm for a .zip container. That's not possible.

The possible algorithms for .zip conatiners are DEFLATE(64), BZip2 and no compression.

If you want to use the LZM Algorithm, use a .7z container. This container also handles the following algorithms: PPMd, BZip2, DEFLATE, BCJ, BCJ2 and no compression.

This is an old question, and not the answer to the specific question, but an answer to the spirit of the question (Using all cores to compress a zip format)

pigz (parallel gzip with .zip option)

pigz -K -k archive.zip bigfile txt

This will give you a zip compatible file 7x faster for same compression level.

A quick comparisons of zip compatible and non-zip compressors using single and multiple cores.

wall times on i7-2600k to compress 1.0gb txt file on fedora 20

67s (120mb) 7za (zip,1 thread)
15s (141mb) 7za -mx=4 (zip,1 thread)
17s (132mb) zip (zip,1 thread)
 5s (131mb) pigz -K -k (zip,8 threads)
 9s (106mb) bsc (libbsc.com) (not zip,8 threads)
 5s (130mb) zhuff -c2 (not zip,8 threads)
 2s (149mb) zhuff (not zip,8 threads)

wall times to decompress

4.2s unzip -t
2.0s pigz -t
5.1s bsc d
0.5s zhuff -d

Verified and tested: To use multithreading on 7za the parameter must be "-mmt#" not "-mmt=#", putting the equal sign makes it to ignore.

How i had discovered? After i run 7z without any parameter it shows the info about parameters, on switches it say "-mmt[N]", not "-mmt=[N]"

So if i understand well, the parameter you are typing "-mmt=2" may be misswritten and may be "-mmt2", without the equal sign.

Not sure if i understand well, my english is really poor.

By the way, why you use "7za" instead of just "7z"?

So to test the parameter i run a set of commands to do benchkmarks and that confirmed the typo error on some documentation. The correct parameter must be typed without the equal sign.

Command to do a benchmark with 7z with only one thread: 7z b -mmt1

Command to do a benchmark with 7z with only two threads: 7z b -mmt2

Command to do a benchmark with 7za with only two threads: 7za b -mmt2

Command to do a benchmark with 7za with only one thread: 7za b -mmt1

There is no equal sign on the parameter ˋ-mmt#ˋ, neither for 7z, nor 7za.

Just use -mmt[N+1]

For example: -mmt2 is for one thread, -mmt9 is for eight threads