Backup Compression Tip

I had a new tip go live today over at MSSQLTips, it is on backup compression and you can read more about it by going here.

Backup compression is a feature offered with the Enterprise version of SQL 2008. After having native compression available in Sybase ASE for years I was happy to see that Microsoft finally offered the same feature. It is worth noting that while compression is an Enterprise-only feature, you are able to restore a compressed backup to other SQL 2008 editions. So, if you are running SQL 2008 Developer and someone hands you a compressed backup you will be able to restore that backup.

It should go without saying that previous version of SQL cannot restore a compressed backup, but I’ll say it here again anyway. Heck, you cannot restore a non-compressed SQL 2008 database backup to a previous version, so don’t waste your time trying a compressed one.

Lastly, be aware that compression comes at a cost, most notably you will see a higher CPU cost when comparing compression versus non-compressed backups.