The compression of backup in SQL Server has been supported since the release of 2008 R2. But I was surprised that this feature is not enabled by default!

To discover if your server has this feature currently set, you can run this small query:

SELECT value FROM sys.configurations WHERE name = 'backup compression default'

If the value returned is 1, then compression is already enabled. If the returned value is 0 and you want to enable the feature, you can do it by running this query:

EXEC sys.sp_configure 'backup compression default', 1

That will default all the backup (otherwise specified) to compress backups.

Note that as stated in Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2014, the Express nor the Web editions support this feature.

I had one database in particular that the size of the backup was 3.5gb uncompressed. After enabling that feature, the size of the backup went down to 850mb. Your mileage may vary!

Of course this setting is also available if you open the Properties of your server (under Database settings).

Finally, it is also available to the backup command line. But I really recommend setting it at the server level so that all backups can automatically benefit from this feature.