7d ago

why is unzipping on android so slow?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32606497

why is unzipping on android so slow compared to Windows? I've tried ZipXtract, MaterialFile... All took 10+minutes to unizip a zip file that only took 30 seconds to unzip on Windows.

Why is this the case and i s there any way to speed it up?

Thanks a lot

EDIT:

I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed

Windows is not running in a virtual machine, just a normal laptop

Typo in the post fixed

EDIT AGAIN:

Solved!

yes it the archive does contains thousands of small files! I think that could be the reason of low performance on android mobile!

thanks a lot @Brett@feddit.org

14 comments

In my experience the unzipping speed roughly matches my expectations of a phone unless the archive contains thousands of small files. I have a phone with a Snapdragon 870 SOC, 8GB RAM und UFS 3.1 storage and a Pixel 7 with Tensor G2, 8GB RAM and also UFS 3.1 storage. Performancewise they're roughly the same. On both decompression is fairly speedy for phone hardware. But when i tried to decompress texture packs for PS2 games with thousands of small texture files time to complete exploded up to several hours. I uneducatedely believe UFS3.1 is the bottleneck here? Decompression scales pretty well with multithreading so i dont expect the SOCs to be a problem. Maybe something something how android handles blocks of data, idk?
- UFS 3.1 is not necessarily bottleneck here. It also depends on the optimization by OEM.
  According to this youtuber some brands UFS 2.2 storage outperforms UFS 3.1 storage used by other brands solely due to their software optimization. Skip the video to 04:54s to see the zip uncompression test and a few mins back to see the results of other tests.
  https://youtu.be/mOm4RbC5qxc
  
  Thanks a lot!
- yes it the archive does contains thousands of small files! I think that could be the reason of low performance on android mobile!
might have something to do with SAF, idk why but android file operation especially with the default file manager is pretty weird. I tend to just use unzip on termux or total commander and it generally seems to work better..
EDIT AGAIN:
Solved!
yes it the archive does contains thousands of small files! I think that could be the reason of low performance on android mobile!
thanks a lot @Brett@feddit.org
- hey, i just run in the issue again today where an file would have taken several hours. instead i tried the app zarchiver and it was done in under a minute. idk if its the best app for that matter. but it worked for me.
  
  thank you, I will try that!
I am NOT in any way well known in this topic, so take it as source? my ass answer, but if I'd have to guess it would be
Poorer singlethread performance of ARM CPUs
Missing instruction sets
Android algorithms written in Java/Kotlin where as Windows (WinRAR, 7zip) are written in C/C++
- Most of the file browsers I've looked at use a native tool to unzip (sometimes literally invoking unzip).
  Even the native/optimised byte code difference shouldn't make the process that much slower unless OP is just using a phone that's not very powerful.
  
  Sry, I should state my device model in the post
  Post updated
  I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed? But I reckon it could be the issue of ARM CPUs
Can you share a test file so we can compare the results and rule out a bottleneck with your device?
- What should I use to do the test?
  
  Check the difference on other phones. Try different file manager apps to see which can do the task faster. Try turning on battery saver mode – sometimes background processes can slow foreground apps.
  To be consistent test 3 times in flight mode. Also, when your phone is warn/hot it can slow down drastically compared to when its cold to the touch.

14 comments