GZIP Compression Levels

[bh-tech]

I was looking through our gzip Compression settings and noticed that our Compression Levels are both set to 1 (Static and Dynamic).
The default for Dynamic is 2, and the default for Static is 6.
I'm not sure when or why these were changed, but should I change them back to their defaults to improve performance?
The Tool Tip says:

[Performance] Higher compression level will use more memory and CPU cycles. You can set it to a higher level if your machine has additional power. There is not much difference between 6 and 9, except 9 uses many more CPU cycles.​

How do I know if my machine has additional power? Compared to what?

 

[bh-tech]

Any advice on this guys?

 

[Unique_Eric]

Suggest using monitor tools. It may let you clear how much your system's CPU & Memory used by LiteSpeed Web Server, then compare different settings.

 

[Johnny]

I'm awfully curious about this too....mine is currently set to 1 and it's not like I'm getting that much traffic....if I got extra server resources, why not raise it? Then again, does this mean my users browsers have to do more work to decompress?

 

[Jon K]

You can raise to however high you want it is just going to use more CPU usage for the higher the compression rate. There is really no impact on users except for them downloading a smaller file ( which is a good thing ). It is best to find a sweet spot that your server can handle for high enough compression with as little resources being used.