Backup Compression questions

  • 1) I've been reading about how compressed backups run faster than non-compressed backups. I tested that over the weekend by setting compression on a 1.3 TB DB. The full backup which had taken 4-5 hours to complete finshed in less than 2 hours with compression on. But the most critical time measurement is how long a emercency restore takes. I wouldn't think a compressed backup would restore faster due to the time to re-write the data files being the same. Would a restore of a compressed backup actually be slower due to the extra procoessor work to uncompress the data?

    2) Can a compressed backup created on SQL Enterprise edition be restored on versions of SQL Server which can't create compressed backups - like SQL 2008 Enterprise --> SQL 2008 Standard, or R2 Enterprise or Standard --> R2 Express?

  • The restore of a compressed backup also runs faster. The difference is really down to how much faster the data is read from the backup file of the compressed backup file than the uncompressed backup file.

    Yes, a compressed backup from the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server can be read by a lower edition of SQL Server. A SQL Server 2008 EE compressed backup can be restored to SQL Server 2008 SE, for example.

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