Notes & articles

Release notes - version 6.xx

Version 6.1 – September 5th, 2012

SQL Storage Compress 6.1 is a minor release and includes the following new features and bug fixes:

• SQL Storage Compress online help has been reviewed and updated.
• It is now possible to create a compressed database on a SQL Server 2012 instance via the SQL Storage Compress GUI.
• SQL Storage Compress GUI will now correctly report the 'Summary of savings', for SQL Server 2012 instances with zero or one databases.
• HyperBacSupportInfo.zip: Output file is now called SupportLogsAndSystemData.zip.
• The HyperBac Driver should no longer cause a Blue Screen if an error occurs while the driver is being loaded into the Kernel.

Version 6.0 – August 3rd, 2011

SQL Storage Compress 6.0 includes a graphical user interface that displays information about disk space used by your databases, and provides a wizard for creating a compressed database by restoring from an existing backup file.

The SQL Storage Compress application is installed separately and offers the following features:

• Lists all user databases on the local machine, by instance, and identifies databases running on compressed files
• Shows disk space used by each database, and the disk space saved for compressed databases
• Shows the percentage disk space saved for each compressed database
• Displays a graph showing total current size on disk used by your databases and the potential size if all were compressed
• Wizard enables simple creation of a compressed database from a backup file: native, SQL Backup, SQL Hyperbac and LiteSpeed formats are supported

Other fixes and enhancements

• Several new file extensions are now pre-configured to make the creation of encrypted compressed databases simpler: .mdfe, .ndfe and .ldfe. When creating a compressed database using the Wizard, encryption is available as an option and will create compressed and encrypted data files and log files with these extensions.
• The following issues have been fixed:
• On start-up some databases show as suspect due to the sequence in which the HyperBac service starts relative to SQL Server.
• Regular restore to compressed files overwriting a database can cause the data files to increase in size over time.

Note for users of SQL Storage Compress versions 5.x and earlier

If you are upgrading from a previous version to v6, note that your existing HyperBac configuration file is not overwritten. This is so that any configuration changes you have made are not undone, which could cause access failures.

However, version 6 supports encrypted databases using several new file extensions: .mdfe, .ndfe and .ldfe. For new installations of v6, these will be pre-configured in the HyperBac configuration file, and so the option to encrypt databases works as expected. If you are upgrading, however, you will need to add these extensions manually using the HyperBac Configuration Manager.

See Adding encryption extensions to the HyperBac configuration file for more information.