[Dismounted]

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

a) Some people use -Q option in the above mysqldump command which is equal to quote-names i.e. it puts a backtick on table names. What is its significance? Do you use it too?

That command is particularly useful when you have tables/databases/fields that contain MySQL keywords (which should be never!). However, when you can't really control what's being added into the database (such as vBulletin modifications), it would be a good idea to use this.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

b) Some people use -9 option for gzip in the above command. In --help it shows that -9 compresses better. Do you use -9 too?

I've never really seen that until now - my guess is that it uses additional CPU power to create a smaller archive (trade-off). I don't use it though.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

c) Do you even prefer to gzip OR just like to keep the bulky .sql files?

GZIP is the way to go.