Yes it does take a bit more processing.
DATA fileout(COMPRESS=CHAR);
MERGE file1 file2;
BY ID;
RUN;
"Advantages of compressing a file include reduced storage requirements for the file and fewer I/O operations to read or write to the data during processing. However, more CPU resources are required to read a compressed file (because of the overhead of uncompressing each observation)." - SAS doc.
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