1. Unity Catalog metadata (schemas, tables, permissions, lineage, etc.) is stored and managed in the Databricks control plane, not in your S3 bucket. This metadata resides in a Databricks-managed database and is not in your customer-managed storage.
2. The S3 bucket you configure when creating a Unity Catalog metastore is only for storing data files of managed tables and volumes (and optionally for external locations). It does not hold the metadata itself.
3. If you donโt specify a storage location, Databricks will use its own managed storage account for managed tables.
So, in short:
- Metadata โ Databricks control plane
- Data files (managed tables/volumes) โ Your configured S3 bucket (or Databricks default if none provided)
Sharing some previous links.
https://community.databricks.com/t5/data-engineering/unity-catalog-metastore-details/td-p/66232
https://community.databricks.com/t5/data-governance/where-is-the-default-unity-catalog-metastore/td-...