How to delete large data of table in SQL without l

Question

I have a large data table. There are 10 million records in this table.

What is the best way for this query

   Delete LargeTable where readTime < dateadd(MONTH,-7,GETDATE())

Answer 1

@m-ali answer is right but also keep in mind that logs could grow a lot if you don't commit the transaction after each chunk and perform a checkpoint. This is how I would do it and take this article http://sqlperformance.com/2013/03/io-subsystem/chunk-deletes as reference, with performance tests and graphs:

DECLARE @Deleted_Rows INT;
SET @Deleted_Rows = 1;


WHILE (@Deleted_Rows > 0)
  BEGIN

   BEGIN TRANSACTION

   -- Delete some small number of rows at a time
     DELETE TOP (10000)  LargeTable 
     WHERE readTime < dateadd(MONTH,-7,GETDATE())

     SET @Deleted_Rows = @@ROWCOUNT;

   COMMIT TRANSACTION
   CHECKPOINT -- for simple recovery model
END

Answer 2

You can also use GO + how many times you want to execute the same query.

DELETE TOP (10000)  [TARGETDATABASE].[SCHEMA].[TARGETTABLE] 
WHERE readTime < dateadd(MONTH,-1,GETDATE());
-- how many times you want the query to repeat
GO 100

Answer 3

You can delete small batches using a while loop, something like this:

DELETE TOP (10000)  LargeTable 
WHERE readTime < dateadd(MONTH,-7,GETDATE())
WHILE @@ROWCOUNT > 0
BEGIN
    DELETE TOP (10000)  LargeTable 
    WHERE readTime < dateadd(MONTH,-7,GETDATE())
END

Answer 4

If you are willing (and able) to implement partitioning, that is an effective technique for removing large quantities of data with little run-time overhead. Not cost-effective for a once-off exercise, though.

Answer 5

Another use:

SET ROWCOUNT 1000 -- Buffer

DECLARE @DATE AS DATETIME = dateadd(MONTH,-7,GETDATE())

DELETE LargeTable  WHERE readTime < @DATE
WHILE @@ROWCOUNT > 0
BEGIN
   DELETE LargeTable  WHERE readTime < @DATE
END
SET ROWCOUNT 0

Optional;

If transaction log is enabled, disable transaction logs.

ALTER DATABASE dbname SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;