BCP or BULK INSERT, which one is better to use.

10 Feb 2006 2:24 PM

Manoj

Hi,

I have some data in ANSI txt file, i want to know which one would be
better and recommended way to import this into table. bcp or BULK
INSERT

Appreciate your inputs on this.

Thanks,
Manoj

10 Feb 2006 2:40 PM

Jack Vamvas

Personally, I use bcp , only because of the added flexibility that I can
also output into a data file

--
Jack Vamvas
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Show quote

"Manoj" <manoj_poo***@dell.com> wrote in message
news:1139581478.079428.98540@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have some data in ANSI txt file, i want to know which one would be
> better and recommended way to import this into table. bcp or BULK
> INSERT
>
> Appreciate your inputs on this.
>
> Thanks,
> Manoj
>

10 Feb 2006 11:05 PM

Erland Sommarskog

Manoj (manoj_poo***@dell.com) writes:

> I have some data in ANSI txt file, i want to know which one would be
> better and recommended way to import this into table. bcp or BULK
> INSERT

I seem to recall that I saw some numbers that indicated that BULK
INSERT is considerably faster than BCP.

However, with moderate volumes simplicity may be more important.
BULK INSERT requires that the file is visible from SQL Server. That
is, on the same machine as SQL Server, or a network drive that
SQL Server can see. For BCP there is no such requirement.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esq***@sommarskog.se

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