Choosing a compression profile

A starting point based on what you're optimizing for. All profiles default to ZSTD level 3 unless noted; bump it up to 19+ for archival storage when the extra encoding time doesn't matter.

Goal	m/z algorithm	intensity algorithm	ZSTD level
Maximum fidelity	lossless	lossless	9
Reasonable size, full precision	lossless	lossless	19
Good size, scientifically safe	delta32	log	9
Aggressive, ML training pipeline	delta24	cast	9
Maximum compression, exploratory	bitpack / vbr	vbr	22

For day-to-day use, delta32 + log is a good default — it cuts file sizes substantially while keeping m/z error well under 1 ppm and intensity error under a fraction of a count.

See the algorithm catalog for per-algorithm precision characterization, and Lossy vs lossless for the underlying tradeoffs.