Is it helpful to compress strings before placing in database?

Question

I am using C# to populate a database table (SQL Server 2005 or 2008). I want the database table size to remain as small as possible because Godaddy only allows 200 MB size databases and I want to get the most out of it. Should I compress my string data as I insert it, or is there a better way of keeping the database size down with some form of compression?

Answer 1

Consider too what you need to do with the strings once they're in the database. Any need to quwry? If so, compression might make that pretty difficult/expensive.