BCP vs Bulk Insert

  • Hey, anybody know which one of these is faster for importing data to a table?

  • Bulk insert is supposed to be faster - up to twice as fast, because it interacts with SQL Server at a lower level than BCP.

  • I Would say bulk insert.If there are indexes on the table the inserts will become slow.

  • BULK INSERT is faster but not considerably. if you want to insert from TSQL the use BULK insert if from DOS then use bcp. There is no benefit in trying to use BULK INSERT from DOS. Plus in BULK INSERT the file location is relative to the server, unlike bcp where its is relative to the client.

    Simon Sabin

    Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088


    Simon Sabin
    SQL Server MVP

    http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons

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