SQL Server Backup Compression Tools

[JMast]

All,

This post is a followup to my "JDE Archiving Odd Question" post from Monday. I decided to start a new one for clarity and to pull people in who may not have read the Archiving post.

LiteSpeed was suggested as a good tool for SQL backups, particularly for the compression benefits. I took a look at their website and it seems like that good be an option for us from both price and features. Are there other tools that compete? I would like to hear any pros, cons or thoughts on them.

I will be upfront and admit that I have not done research beyond a quick Google search for other packages. i don't intend to freeload off your time, but any quick thoughts you have to help me use my research time most efficiently would be helpful.

We are on SQL Server 2005 and I understand that SQL 2008 has some compression capabilities. It is unknown at this point when we will upgrade to 2008, so I am considering this as a stop gap measure (of course, we may continue to use it after we upgrade).

Thanks for the help and have a great weekend,

Jer

 

[shearerj]

If you are only looking for a stop-gap until you upgrade to SQL Server 2008 any of the following should work just fine:
* Lightspeed
* RedGate SQL Backup
* Idera SQL Safe

Most of my experience has been with RedGate and it has worked flawlessly.

 

[JMast]

I have been looking at the products and options at Redgate, so your response is much appreciated. I haven't looked at Idera, thanks for the tip.

Thank you

 

[Maria Pardo]

I have also been working with RedGate- it works very well.

 

[JMast]

Thanks for the post. I am thinking of using the free trial of Redgate on our development server to see how things go.

 

[NewUlmGuy]

I have been using LightSpeed for about 5 years now. It has been a great product. It compresses our 150GB production data file to about 45GB in about 1 hour. The restore times run about the same and we have yet to have a problem.

 

[pshearer]

We have been using Redgate for about 4 years now for our 100+ SQL instances. Great product, great support!