I'm confused what is happening. Can you explain it a touch better?

I see it. That is strange if you're not seeing it. Should be no linkage between the two.

BIDS is a tool, it isn't a way to find a job. No one advertises or asks for someone that has skills in BIDS. Anyone asking for skills would be...

At the time we had 3 compression settings (light, medium, high). They result in (in order), less compression, good compression, heavy compression, meaning most disk space, middle, least disk space.

If...

The technical reason is that it's not support. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143393%28SQL.90%29.aspx I don't believe setup will allow this.

Can you do it if you handle the uninstall/reinstall, attach dbs, move jobs/logins/packages with scripts?...

You need space on the server for a backup. Remove backups do not tolerate any delay, and any network hiccup, which happen all the time, will fail the backup. File...

Agree with ChrisM. Barry has good advice, but be sure you test extraction as well.

I'd go with GTs advice, though replication has worked pretty well in small situations without worrying about agents.

I'd script the shutdown of the subscriber agents (use SQLCMD) since you'll likely...

yes

and

yes, maybe.

All of this requires testing. Moving to temp tables could help, but you would have to run a lot of tests, probably some on the live system, to...

I think it's a tough one and a toss up. You might not be able to get more/better CPUs easier than disk in an enterprise box. It could easily be...

It's one thing to check for fragmentation, but that's a performance thing, not a space thing. If this is Enterprise, compression should help you. However likely what you need to...

Overall it makes sense to me. I'm sure someone just bought "SQL Server" not knowing about MSDE. If you can live with the performance and limitations pointed out above, use...

Let us know. Typically it's been on the interior case with me, but I don't know how it's applied. I'd assume from MS, but possibly it's the responsibility of the...

They all compress things, but the SQL Server native compression is on/off only (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb964719.aspx). Both Litespeed and Red Gate allow varying levels of compression, which allows you to trade off...

Grant Fritchey (2/19/2010)

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Pretty much holding the book in my hands is the reward I love. It's kind of hard to describe. That and hearing that it was useful. Makes all...