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I have a very large table and I must delete big amount of data from it until some point.

The table has only one non-clustered index on a column which is not relevant to use in my delete query. The first idea that comes to me is to include to the index a unique column which I could use in my delete query.

My question is, do you think it will be a good option or something better can be done?

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    very large table and delete big amount: drop the non-clustered index, run the delete and recreate the index.
    – dnoeth
    Oct 20, 2016 at 8:03
  • Will my query run faster after dropping the index than it could ? Oct 20, 2016 at 8:10
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    Probably, this is a common technique when deleting a large percentage. Instead of maintaining the index during the delete you simply recreate it when it's done.
    – dnoeth
    Oct 20, 2016 at 8:30
  • how long can it take to recreate the index in a table with data space for more than 100 GB ? Oct 20, 2016 at 9:11
  • How long can it take to maintain that index during a delete? You can run some tests on a smaller subset of the data.
    – dnoeth
    Oct 20, 2016 at 9:24

1 Answer 1

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You should do 2 things for efficiently deleting the data from your big table :

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