How big should a delta table be to benefit from liquid clustering?

[DatBoi]

My questions is pretty straightforward - how big should a delta table be to benefit from liquid clustering? I know the answer will most likely depend on the details of how you are querying the data, but what is the recommendation?

I know Databricks recommends not partitioning on tables less than 1 TB and aim for 1 GB partitions. Does this hold true for liquid clustering?

And vice versa - will clustering on a small table < 1TB or even < 1GB hinder the performance of queries?

I have been looking for some documentation / resources to dive into these details but can't seem to find any. Everything I have found online is just covering the basics. Is there something like this out there?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[daniel_sahal · Accepted solution]

@DatBoi 
Once you watch this video you'll understand more about Liquid Clustering 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t6wX28JC_M&ab_channel=DeltaLake

Long story short:

I know Databricks recommends not partitioning on tables less than 1 TB and aim for 1 GB partitions. Does this hold true for liquid clustering?

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Clustering is a little bit different from partitioning. The main issue with partitioning tables less than 1TB is that it could create a lot of small files, that could negatively impact performance. With liquid clustering there's no such issue.

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And vice versa - will clustering on a small table < 1TB or even < 1GB hinder the performance of queries?

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From my experience - not really. 

[DatBoi]

Got it - will take a look at that video. Thanks for the response.