SQL 2008 compression

Question

I am an intern and I was asked to do some research on SQL 2008 data compression. We want to store several parts of Outlook emails in a table. The problem is that we want to keep the entire body of the email in the field, but then we want to compress it. Using Char () will not store the entire object, but will allow compression ... using varchar () will store the whole object, but will not allow compression. Any ideas on how to store the whole body and compress it?

Thank you for your responses!

Answer 1

Types of Data Compression in SQL Server 2008

Creating Compressed Tables and Indexes

Technical Documentation: Data Compression: Strategy, Capacity Planning, and Best Practices

Answer 2

SQL 2008 can do it for you, see Creating Compressed Tables and Indexes

Answer 3

Is it possible that the maximum possible size of your row exceeds the maximum allowed row size? You mentioned 7,500+ letters with characters, so it seems that you are approaching the limit.

"The table cannot be enabled for compression when the maximum row size plus compression overhead exceeds the maximum row size of 8060 bytes."

from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280449.aspx