Should NetBackup compression be used on top of SQL Server compression?

[A_J_A]

For our SQL Server backup policies, we currently use SQL Server native compression (SQLCOMPRESSION TRUE) in the .bch file which makes the backup significantly faster.  Should the NetBackup policy also have the compression option selected, or would that be trying to compress something that is already compressed, causing additional CPU time for little to no gain in data reduction?

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Actually, the backup image will probably get a little bit bigger - and yes, lots of wasted CPU resource.

[Marianne]

What kind of storage are you backing up to?

You should not use any kind of compression for backups to dedupe storage.

[Douglas_A]

Agree with Marianne, If you have disk as a target then you dont want to use either one as it will demolish your dedupe rates. 

the Policy based compression in NBU isnt the best and does have a truck load of CPU and memory drag with it so i wouldnt recomend using that ever really, but if your target is tape or basic disk > tape then SQL compression would be fine. Anything else though i would suggest turning it off. 

[A_J_A]

We are backing up to tape, so it sounds like SQL Compression only is a good option. Thanks!

[Nicolai]

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