Hi @Curious-mind ,

Welcome to using Databricks! For your use case, I think creating managed tables using COPY INTO are going to be more performative which will lead to better cost scalability as well. While external tables could initially be a bit cheaper, managed Delta tables offer significant performance and usability benefits that pay off as your data grows.

Here are a few benefits that managed tables offer over external tables:

• Faster queries with indexing, caching, and Delta optimizations

• Easier schema enforcement, versioning, and time travel

• Seamless use with Unity Catalog, RBAC, and Serverless SQL

• Better support for optimization (OPTIMIZE, VACUUM, etc.)