Guidelines for Deleting Rows - Teradata Database

Task

First Choice

Second Choice

Delete a small number of rows from any table

TPump

BTEQ

Delete a large number of rows from a large table

MultiLoad

BTEQ

Perform DELETE operations on a large number of rows on multiple tables

MultiLoad

TPump

Delete all rows from a table

BTEQ

In this case, Teradata marks the table header with an indicator to say that the table is empty. Assuming there are no locks on the table when this delete is requested, the delete will complete in a second or two.

Delete some rows from a table

BTEQ
Space permitting, it can also be an option to create an empty table, insert into this table the rows that you wish to retain and drop the original table and then rename the new table to the name of the original table.

MultiLoad deletes are good for deleting large volumes of data, but not all data, from a table.

MultiLoad reads the data block by block. It will “touch” each block consumed by the table and remove rows as appropriate, and replace the block.

This can be very efficient and will beat an SQL delete in many cases as there is no rollback logging. However, MultiLoad must complete or else the table will remain in an unstable state. For MultiLoad to work best, drop SIs, run the MultiLoad delete, and then replace the indexes. This is quicker and ensures that the work table is small.