Truncate

Delete

TRUNCATE is a DDL command

DELETE is a DML command

TRUNCATE TABLE always locks the table and page but not each row

DELETE statement is executed using a row lock, each row in the table is locked for deletion

Cannot use Where Condition

We can specify filters in where clause

It Removes all the data

It deletes specified data if where condition exists.

TRUNCATE TABLE cannot activate a trigger because the operation does not log individual row deletions.

Delete activates a trigger because the operation are logged individually.

Faster in performance wise, because it doesn’t keep any logs

Slower than truncate because, it keeps logs

Rollback is not possible

Rollback is possible

Drop all object’s statistics and marks like High Water Mark free extents and leave the object really empty with the first extent. zero pages are left in the table

keeps object’s statistics and all allocated space. After a DELETE statement is executed, the table can still contain empty pages.

TRUNCATE TABLE removes the data by deallocating the data pages used to store the table data and records only the page deallocations in the transaction lo

The DELETE statement removes rows one at a time and records an entry in the transaction log for each deleted row

If the table contains an identity column, the counter for that column is reset to the seed value that is defined for the column

DELETE retain the identity

Restrictions on using Truncate Statement

1. Are referenced by a FOREIGN KEY constraint.

2. Participate in an indexed view.

3. Are published by using transactional replication or merge replication.

Delete works at row level, thus row level constrains