Tips and Tricks

2. Reducing Storage Requirements with BTRFS Compression

BTRFS compression can dramatically reduce the storage space needed for AOSP builds.

1. Create a BTRFS Filesystem:

sudo mkfs.btrfs /dev/your_storage_partition  # Replace with your actual partition

2. Mount with Compression:

sudo mount /dev/your_storage_partition /mnt/aosp -o defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd,space_cache=v2,commit=120

Replace /mnt/aosp with your desired mount point.

3. fstab Entry (Optional): For persistent mounting, add a line to your /etc/fstab:

/dev/your_storage_partition /mnt/aosp btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd,space_cache=v2,commit=120 0 0

Benefits: This can reduce storage usage by around 50% (e.g., a 195GB build might only take up 101GB).

Example Compression Statistics:

Processed 2056218 files, 2145323 regular extents (2147448 refs), 1192781 inline.
Type       Perc     Disk Usage   Uncompressed Referenced
TOTAL       55%      130G         235G         236G
none       100%       69G          69G          70G
zstd        36%       60G         165G         165G

Note: You might be able to achieve even greater compression with dwarfs, but this is more complex to set up.