Compress

tar cf - <files> -P | pv -s $(du -sb <files> | awk '{print $1}') | gzip > <some .tar.gz file>

where:

• <files> is the root-mounted (i.e. starts with /) path to the files
• <some .tar.gz file> is the output tarball to create

Decompress

pv <some .tar.gz file> | tar -xvzf - -C <some directory>

where:

• <some .tar.gz file> is the path to the tarball to extract
• <some directory> is the directory to extract the tarball to