Optimize and Vacuum - which is the best order of operations?

[Hubert-Dudek]

Optimize -> Vacuum

or

Vacuum -> Optimize

[Hubert-Dudek]

I am asking some questions as nobody is writing today 🙂

[Piper_Wilson]

Thank you!

[Hubert-Dudek]

In my opinion as Vacuum remove old files so is better to do Vacuum first so there will be less files to optimize but maybe in some cases it will be faster to delete optimized already files (so optimize first) ❔️

[-werners-]

I optimize first as delta lake knows which files are relevant for the optimize. Like that I have my optimized data available faster. Then a vacuum. Seemed logical to me, but I might be wrong. Never actually thought about it

[jose_gonzalez · Accepted solution]

I agree with you @Werner Stinckens​ . I will always do optimize to try to compact the files more (default size is 1 gb) and then run vacuum. Vacuum will remove the old files that are no longer needed or have been marked as obsoleted by the optimize command.