diff --git a/eessi_container.sh b/eessi_container.sh
index c82d6b9936..d6b7065d3f 100755
--- a/eessi_container.sh
+++ b/eessi_container.sh
@@ -408,6 +408,19 @@ else
   echo "Using ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE} as tmp directory (to resume session add '--resume ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}')."
 fi
 
+# if ${RESUME} is a file, unpack it into ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}
+if [[ ! -z ${RESUME} && -f ${RESUME} ]]; then
+  if [[ "${RESUME}" == *.tgz ]]; then
+    tar xf ${RESUME} -C ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}
+  # Add support for resuming from zstd-compressed tarballs
+  elif [[ "${RESUME}" == *.zst && -x "$(command -v zstd)" ]]; then
+    zstd -dc ${RESUME} | tar -xf - -C ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}
+  elif [[ "${RESUME}" == *.zst && ! -x "$(command -v zstd)" ]]; then
+    fatal_error "Trying to resume from tarball ${RESUME} which was compressed using zstd, but zstd command not found"
+  fi
+  echo "Resuming from previous run using temporary storage ${RESUME} unpacked into ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}"
+fi
+
 # if ${RESUME} is a file (assume a tgz), unpack it into ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}
 if [[ ! -z ${RESUME} && -f ${RESUME} ]]; then
   tar xf ${RESUME} -C ${EESSI_HOST_STORAGE}
@@ -865,17 +878,30 @@ if [[ ! -z ${SAVE} ]]; then
   #   ARCH which might have been used internally, eg, when software packages
   #   were built ... we rather keep the script here "stupid" and leave the handling
   #   of these aspects to where the script is used
+  # Compression with zlib may be quite slow. On some systems, the pipeline takes ~20 mins for a 2 min build because of this.
+  # Check if zstd is present for faster compression and decompression
   if [[ -d ${SAVE} ]]; then
     # assume SAVE is name of a directory to which tarball shall be written to
     #   name format: tmp_storage-{TIMESTAMP}.tgz
     ts=$(date +%s)
-    TGZ=${SAVE}/tmp_storage-${ts}.tgz
+    if [[ -x "$(command -v zstd)" ]]; then
+      TARBALL=${SAVE}/tmp_storage-${ts}.zst
+      tar -cf - -C ${EESSI_TMPDIR} . | zstd -T0 > ${TARBALL}
+    else
+      TARBALL=${SAVE}/tmp_storage-${ts}.tgz
+      tar czf ${TARBALL} -C ${EESSI_TMPDIR} .
+    fi
   else
     # assume SAVE is the full path to a tarball's name
-    TGZ=${SAVE}
+    TARBALL=${SAVE}
+    # if zstd is present and a .zst extension is asked for, use it
+    if [[ "${SAVE}" == *.zst && -x "$(command -v zstd)" ]]; then
+      tar -cf - -C ${EESSI_TMPDIR} . | zstd -T0 > ${TARBALL}
+    else
+      tar czf ${TARBALL} -C ${EESSI_TMPDIR}
+    fi
   fi
-  tar czf ${TGZ} -C ${EESSI_TMPDIR} .
-  echo "Saved contents of tmp directory '${EESSI_TMPDIR}' to tarball '${TGZ}' (to resume session add '--resume ${TGZ}')"
+  echo "Saved contents of tmp directory '${EESSI_TMPDIR}' to tarball '${TARBALL}' (to resume session add '--resume ${TARBALL}')"
 fi
 
 # TODO clean up tmp by default? only retain if another option provided (--retain-tmp)
diff --git a/test_suite.sh b/test_suite.sh
index 4121a37c2e..f5f3255841 100755
--- a/test_suite.sh
+++ b/test_suite.sh
@@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ else
     fatal_error "Failed to extract names of tests to run: ${REFRAME_NAME_ARGS}"
     exit ${test_selection_exit_code}
 fi
-# Allow people deploying the bot to overrwide this
+# Allow people deploying the bot to override this
 if [ -z "$REFRAME_SCALE_TAG" ]; then
     REFRAME_SCALE_TAG="--tag 1_node"
 fi