You may store SAS data sets in a compressed mode. This requires less space. It is a good way to store large data sets, unless you are going to use them often. Uncompressing them for use does take some resources, but storage can take much less space.
Use the Compress=Yes system option (this is one way) to tell SAS to compress the data sets created in your program (all those created after the Options statement containing the compress option will be compressed).
Placing
options compress=yes;
before the program above will release over 26% of the bytes needed to store the non-compressed version of the data set (this may vary).
Running Proc Means on the non-compressed data set uses 0.26 seconds of CPU time (times will vary depending on the computer speed). Running Proc Means on the compressed data set uses 0.35 seconds of CPU time. There is a price to pay when you compress the data.
Note: Proc Contents will tell you if a SAS data set is compressed or not.
