[Mediawiki-l] DB size - reducing and backing up

[Eric K]

I had two questions about database issues. The SQL database for me is now 800MB.
 
1) On the shared server the wiki is hosted, I have to email support to create a backup that I can download. I can no longer download it myself from the PHPMyAdmin interface as its too big and it times out.
There are probably several solutions that handle backing up large databases without draining resources heavily (and instead just take more time to complete, which is fine. It would have to be broken up into a number of processes too so it doesnt exceed the execution time limit on shared servers). 
So my question is: Are there any popular good solutions for backing up large databases that you are using for backing up your wiki? For example, I found one using a google search:
http://www.phpclasses.org/package/4017-PHP-Backup-large-MySQL-databases-into-multiple-files.html
But I dont know if this is reliable.
 
2) Most of the space is taken up by mw_text, for the old revisions. I dont want to delete them since it deletes the page history so I'm looking at other options. One that I saw says we can compress old revisions: 
-  Note: If the $wgCompressRevisions option is on, new rows (=current revisions) will be gzipped transparently at save time. Previous revisions can also be compressed by using the script compressOld.php
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Text_table
My question is: Will compressing old revisions effect performance or create any other issues on a shared hosting environment?
I'm guessing it will only have an effect when we click on a "diff" link. But will that make it execute the script say for, 20 seconds and make it really slow? Also, will this reduce the database size a lot or just a little bit?
I've read somewhere that the 'old_text' blob field could be set to 0, in a script to delete the revision but keep the historical record of the edit (date, author but not the actual changes, and thats fine). I'm debating between these two options.
 
thanks
Eric