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What are the benefits and drawbacks of using compression encodings in Redshift?

SQLeasy0.5 min readPremium

Redshift compression benefits: Reduced storage, less I/O, faster scans, lower cost. Encodings: AZ64, LZO, ZSTD, etc. Drawbacks: (1) CPU overhead for encode/decode—can slow writes. (2) Random access—compressed blocks must be decompressed. (3) Wrong encoding—poor choice can...

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Frequency
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Asked at 1 company
Category
487
questions in SQL
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130E|271M|86H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
Asked at these companies
Capco

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Expert Answer
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Redshift compression benefits: Reduced storage, less I/O, faster scans, lower cost. Encodings: AZ64, LZO, ZSTD, etc. Drawbacks: (1) CPU overhead for encode/decode—can slow writes. (2) Random access—compressed blocks must be decompressed. (3) Wrong encoding—poor choice can increase size (e.g., RLE on high-cardinality). Best practice: Use AUTO encoding for new tables; analyze ANALYZE COMPRESSION recommendations. Choose BYTEDICT for low-cardinality; DELTA for timestamps. Monitor compressibility and query performance post-encoding. Why it matters: Design choices compound at scale—wrong approach can cause 100× overhead. Scalability trade-offs: Profile before optimizing; validate on sample then full. Cost implications: Suboptimal choices multiply at billion-row scale.

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