If you don't ever need to build and/or test the installer with a developer (component) build you can stop reading now!
FYI, as of
http://crrev.com/152124, building the mini_installer target no longer compresses the archive (chrome.7z) into chrome.packed.7z for component builds.
This was a big waste of developer time as any change would require packing the archive (3:30s for Debug builds) and unpacking it immediately when testing the installer (which was just as slow...).
Incremental rebuilds for the mini_installer target just went from 3:30s to 18s for Debug builds and from 1:13s to 13s for Release builds (not counting time saved not decompressing on the follow-up test installs)!
Cheers!
Gab
PS: Keep in mind though that mini_installer.exe itself is still not compatible with the component build (
http://crbug.com/127233); you still have to use setup.exe directly in component builds.