I have a test environment for an application. From time to time I take the database to my local development environment.

A smaller backup means less network latency and a faster local reproduction scenario.

Since 2008 Microsoft SQL Server comes with a feature called backup compression.

I gave it a try and so I ran the two following statements in competition:

  BACKUP DATABASE [XXX]   
  TO DISK = N'D:\DATA\SQL\BACKUP\Uncompressed.bak'   
  WITH   
    COPY_ONLY,   
    NOFORMAT,   
    NOINIT,   
    NAME = N'Full Database Backup',   
    SKIP,   
    NOREWIND,   
    NOUNLOAD,   
    STATS = 10  
  GO  

vs.

  BACKUP DATABASE [XXX]   
  TO DISK = N'D:\DATA\SQL\BACKUP\Compressed.bak'   
  WITH   
    COPY_ONLY,   
    FORMAT,   
    INIT,   
    NAME = N'Full Database Backup',   
    SKIP,   
    NOREWIND,   
    NOUNLOAD,   
    COMPRESSION,    
    STATS = 10  
  GO  

Here are the results:

image