Greetings,
I have some compressed databases, and also been experimenting with compressing them (page compression). I don't have a lot of hands-on experience with this, so I am trying to understand. Additionally. I have compressed backed ups. On one backup, using compressing, was about 50G. The database at that time was uncompressed. The database reports it is about 160G, and there are 4 separate files that are being used.
I then compressed the database. Here is where I need further understanding. The database still reports it's 160G. All the files in the database are still taking up the same amount of physical space, there is no additional white space in the database.
So, by compressing the database, I really wanted to lower the on-disk utilization since once of the files is nearly exceeding the capacity of the drive.
How do I go ahead and reduce the files, if that is even possible? And if not, when gain is there to compressing a database if the files are not smaller?)
