Delete or Truncate statement for data purging

Question

Hi,
I am writting a stored procedure to purge data from table every month. There is no constraint on table column except primary key.
I am using 'delete' statement as it records an entry in the transaction log for each deleted row. But it's a slow process compared to 'Truncate' statement.
Can you please suggest what should I choose (Delete or truncate) as per best practice.
Thanks
Sandy
SandyLeo

Answer 1

If you want to  delete all rows in the table use TRUNCATE, otherwise I would suggest the below technique
--SQL2008 and onwards
insert into Archive..db
select getdate(),d.*
from (delete  from db1
        output deleted.*
        where col=<value>
) d
        go
Best Regards,Uri Dimant SQL Server MVP,
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/uri_dimant/
MS SQL optimization: MS SQL Development and Optimization
MS SQL Consulting:
Large scale of database and data cleansing
Remote DBA Services:
Improves MS SQL Database Performance
SQL Server Integration Services:
Business Intelligence