What is external table and managed table in Hive?

What is the difference between manage table and external table?

The main difference between a managed and external table is that when you drop an external table, the underlying data files stay intact. This is because the user is expected to manage the data files and directories. With a managed table, the underlying directories and data get wiped out when the table is dropped.

What is external table in Hive?

An external table is a table for which Hive does not manage storage. If you delete an external table, only the definition in Hive is deleted. The data remains. An internal table is a table that Hive manages. If you delete an internal table, both the definition in Hive and the data are deleted.

How do you know if a table is managed table or external table?

Managed or external tables can be identified using the DESCRIBE FORMATTED table_name command, which will display either MANAGED_TABLE or EXTERNAL_TABLE depending on table type.

What is external table?

An external table is a table whose data come from flat files stored outside of the database.