Have you cleared the buffer before...

Use sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats to know the effectiveness of your existing indexes.

Yes. There is no change in restore.

Restore is same for compressed or normal backup.

Are you facing any performane issues?

Indexes are query specific.

So, please post your SQL statement and execution plan.

Jeff K (9/26/2012)

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... Doing a SELECT * from {table} is causing something to be written to the C drive. Restarting services does NOT free the disk space but...

Do you have access to the subscriber? If yes you can easily check and confirm.

Following may be better solution, still worth implementing:

1) You can create a job run Subscription Validation.

2) You can create alert for latency.

Please run the following script to check why log entries are not removed:

select name, log_reuse_wait, log_reuse_wait_desc

from sys.databases

where name = 'Distribution'

Also run:

dbcc opentran()

What is the recovery model of your Distribution database?

It is supposed to be "Simple". If it is something else, change it to Simple.

Shrinking does't affect backup size. Becuase backup anyway contains only the used pages. Backup doesn't contain empty pages.

Have you considered compressed backup?

sa is member of sysadmin server role.

sysadmin role members don't need any additional role membership.

No. Not on different machine. On different Drives.

It is a best practice to place data and log files on different drives for following 2 reasons:

1) DR (Disaster recovery). If one...

Following are important steps

1) Check database integrity

2) Backup database

3) Backup Transaction Log

Additional points:

1) Backup both user and system databases.

2) If the data and log files are on same drive, move...

There may be blocking issue. Please run the following query to confirm:

select status, blocking_session_id, wait_type, wait_resource

from sys.dm_exec_requests

where session_id = <spid>

The error message says

I believe it is due to permission issue.

Use Proxy Account for the job.