Demonstration that TRUNCATE and DROP are logged and just as fast as one another.

TRUNCATE and DROP are both minimally logged.sql

SET NOCOUNT ON;
USE [tempdb];

CREATE TABLE a_farting_farthing (
	  an_integer	INT	DEFAULT (1)
);

INSERT INTO a_farting_farthing
DEFAULT VALUES;

GO



-- Use the power of exponential growth.
-- This is the fastest way to create a massive table *from nothing*.
-- Number of rows created will be 2^x, where x is the number after the GO.
INSERT INTO a_farting_farthing
SELECT an_integer
FROM a_farting_farthing;

GO 27 -- This will produce >134 million rows.



DECLARE @row_count INT;

SELECT @row_count = COUNT(*)
FROM a_farting_farthing;

PRINT CHAR(13) + 'initial row count: ' + CAST(@row_count AS VARCHAR(10));

-- begin operation TROP (i.e. TRUNCATE/DROP)
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
	PRINT CHAR(13) + 'TRUNCATE';
	
	SET STATISTICS TIME ON;
	
	TRUNCATE TABLE a_farting_farthing;
	
	SET STATISTICS TIME OFF;
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;

SELECT @row_count = COUNT(*)
FROM a_farting_farthing;

PRINT CHAR(13) + 'TRUNCATE row count: ' + CAST(@row_count AS VARCHAR(10));

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
	PRINT CHAR(13) + 'TRUNCATE then DROP';
	
	SET STATISTICS TIME ON;

	TRUNCATE TABLE a_farting_farthing;
	DROP TABLE a_farting_farthing;

	SET STATISTICS TIME OFF;
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;

SELECT @row_count = COUNT(*)
FROM a_farting_farthing;

PRINT CHAR(13) + 'TRUNCATE then DROP row count: ' + CAST(@row_count AS VARCHAR(10));

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
	PRINT CHAR(13) + 'DROP';

	SET STATISTICS TIME ON;

	DROP TABLE a_farting_farthing;

	SET STATISTICS TIME OFF;
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;

SELECT @row_count = COUNT(*)
FROM a_farting_farthing;

PRINT CHAR(13) + 'DROP row count: ' + CAST(@row_count AS VARCHAR(10));

GO 10



--DROP TABLE a_farting_farthing;

Hi Nick,

I appreciate anyone that steps up to the plate with coded examples so thanks for that.

Just a bit of a hint... your method for populating the table took, 00:02:59 (hh:mi:ss) on my machine. Try the following on your machine. On my machine, it took just of 18 seconds for 135 Million rows even, It also has a different number for each row instead of them all being the same, which is wicked important when using such tables to test for performance because they don't have a cardinality of just 1.

--===== Presets    
    USE tempdb;
    SET NOCOUNT OFF --We're only working with a single rowcount this time.
;
--===== Create the test table
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS dbo.a_farting_farthing;
 CREATE TABLE dbo.a_farting_farthing
        (
        an_integer INT DEFAULT (1)
        )
;
--===== Poulate the table courtesy of Itzik Ben-Gans "cascading CTE" (my name for it) method
     -- with a little assistance by using "Minimal Logging" and a "Moden Mod".
 WITH
    H1(N) AS (SELECT 1 FROM (VALUES (1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1))H0(N))
,Tally(N) AS (SELECT TOP 135000000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY @@SPID)
                FROM H1 a,H1 b,H1 c,H1 d,H1 e,H1 f,H1 g,H1 h)
 INSERT INTO dbo.a_farting_farthing WITH (TABLOCK)
        (an_integer)
 SELECT an_integer = t.N
   FROM Tally t
 OPTION (RECOMPILE)
;