I'm just about to upgrade to SQL 2008 on new hardware too.

Just got the news about 'all they have left is slow SAN space', to which I said 'that won't do for production'.

We''l see how they respond. Likely I'll get stuck having to build and configure on local disk, then reconfigure to go live.

Our backups run pretty quick with the software they use.

I'm interested in seeing how it compares with the 2008 native compression. Initial testing was fairly comparable - speed a bit slower, not quite as much compression.

I'm sure the SAN people appreciate our compressed backups. 😀

Greg E