C# SQL Server Compact Edition: Very High Compression Ratio
<p>I've developed a .NET WPF application, with data storage handled by SQL Server Compact Edition. I noted that when I zip the obtained SQL Server CE file, I often compress it down to 5% of the original file size.</p>

<p>At the risk of showing some significant ignorance here, is this expected behaviour? It seems that given this massive size saving, I should be compressing the files every time I save (I have not yet considered the performance implications of this). Database size can vary from a few MBs all the way to the maximum 4GB, although this will be rare. Is my data being stored inefficiently, or why am I getting such significant savings when I compress? Is there something that I can do to always obtain this space saving, without having to externally compress the SQL Server CE file?</p>