topic Re: Functional Difference between managed and external tables UC in missing-QuestionPost

Functional Difference between managed and external tables UC

carlosjrestr — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 01:04:20 GMT

Hi community,

Is there a summary or detail guidance on the functional difference between managed and external tables in unity catalog? Looking at the documentation I can't find any specific functionality in databricks that is supported in managed tables that is not supported in external tables. Assuming I have external tables using delta format what capabilities I will not be able to use if I don't convert them to managed tables?

Thanks

Re: Functional Difference between managed and external tables UC

-werners- — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 10:07:15 GMT

afaik there are only performance differences.

managed tables should have some performance tweaks. But I haven't tested how much you gain.

I like to have control over my storage so I exclusively use external tables (we have other tools besides databricks that access our data).

And of course, drop table works differently on managed vs unmanaged tables.

Re: Functional Difference between managed and external tables UC

carlosjrestr — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 16:09:26 GMT

Thanks. I wonder why we cannot access managed tables directly with non-databricks apps. Once you get the path to the table you need is just a matter of reading the delta file. Does @Adam Pavlacka do something to the underlying delta files that make this scenario not supported?

Re: Functional Difference between managed and external tables UC

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 07:07:35 GMT

Hi @Carlos Restrepo

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