Part of the SQL Server 2022 blog series.
In SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, backup compression was introduced addingWITH COMPRESSION as an option in the T-SQL backup command. SQL Server backup compression provides the compressed backup option for all streaming SQL Server backup typesfull, differential, and transaction log. Using the metadata in the backup file header, the RESTORE command decompresses compressed backup files. Compressing backup data benefits customers in two ways: first, the backup files will consume less storage, and second, since there are fewer bytes being transferred, the backups run faster than uncompressed backups.
The default configuration in SQL Server is