Enabling Backup compression in server level

Backup compression was one of the attractive feature introduced in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise edition which is available in all edition from SQL Server 2008 R2. Compressed backup saves us both disk space and backup time with a cost of CPU consumption :)

We can take compressed backup by specifying with compression option when we take backup like mentioned below

BACKUP DATABASE [Database name] 
TO  DISK = N'Path' 
WITH COMPRESSION

Instead of specifying  compression  in each backup lets see how to make it default in instance level

1)Using SSMS

   Right click on the Instance name->Database setting and check the compress backup check box and now its done

2) Using script

      We can use the below script to enable backup compression by default in server level

  EXEC sys.sp_configure N'backup compression default', N'1'

  GO

  RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

   GO

So from now it is not required to specify with compression in each backup and if we want to take a uncompressed backup we need to specify WITH NO_COMPRESSION

So lets  see how much time and disk space compressed backup save, i will show you this my showing the values of a compressed and uncompressed backup i took

So from the above output its pretty clear  how attractive is compressed backup and i would suggest compression  to enabled in instance level as soon as we install server