So I’ve been messing around with some compression stuff lately, you know, trying to get those huge files down to a manageable size. It’s been a real headache, to be honest. Anyway, I decided to compare two tools I heard about – BAM and ROCKETS. I figured it would be interesting to see which one was faster, compressed better, all that jazz.
First, I had to get these things installed. BAM was a pain, honestly. I had to dig through all these forums to figure out how to compile it. I mean, who even does that anymore? It felt like I was back in the 90s or something. But, I got it working eventually, after a few hours of banging my head against the wall. ROCKETS, on the other hand, was a breeze. I just downloaded it, clicked a few buttons, and boom, it was ready to go. Much better, in my opinion.
Then, I grabbed a bunch of different files to test – some text files, some images, a video, even a few of those weird genomics files. I wanted to see how each tool handled different kinds of data. I created a simple shell script to compress files.
I started with BAM. I ran it on my test files and watched the little progress bar do its thing. I used the command `bam -o * *`. It wasn’t lightning fast, but it got the job done. But man, the file sizes were still pretty big. I was like, “Seriously, BAM? Is that all you got?”
Next up, ROCKETS. I fed it the same files and let it do its magic. I used the command `rockets -o * *`. Holy moly, this thing was fast! It zipped through those files like they were nothing. And the compression? Way better than BAM. I was actually impressed. My jaw dropped when I saw the final file sizes, which were smaller than what I got with BAM.
So here’s the thing. After all this messing around, I realized something. For raw speed, ROCKETS is a clear winner. It’s like a sports car compared to BAM’s old pickup truck. For compression, it’s also the winner, with a good margin! I have to give props to the ROCKETS developers, they did a good job here.
I made a table of file sizes of the inputs and the two outputs.
- File type
- Original size
- BAM compressed size
- ROCKETS compressed size
- Text file
- 10 MB
- 8 MB
- 5 MB
- Image
- 25 MB
- 20 MB
- 15 MB
- Video
- 1 GB
- 800 MB
- 600 MB
- Genomics file
- 5 GB
- 4 GB
- 3 GB
If you’re just looking to squish some files and don’t care about waiting, BAM might work. But if you want speed and smaller files, ROCKETS is the way to go. Plus, it’s just easier to use. And that’s a big deal for me, especially when I have other things to worry about.
So yeah, that’s my little experiment. I spent a good chunk of my day on this, but I think it was worth it. Hopefully, this helps someone out there who’s also pulling their hair out over compression tools. It might save you some time, and maybe even a few brain cells. At least you won’t have to go through what I did.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Time to go do something more interesting, like watching paint dry. Later!
