Managed Table vs External Table

Question

What is the difference between Managed table and External Table in Hive?

Answer 1

External table is created for external use as when the data is used outside Hive. Whenever we want to delete the table’s metadata and we want to keep the table’s data as it is, we use an External table. External table only deletes the schema of the table.

A managed table is also called an Internal table. This is the default table in Hive. When we create a table in Hive without specifying it as external, by default we will get a Managed table. If we create a table as a managed table, the table will be created in a specific location in HDFS. By default, the table data will be created in /usr/hive/warehouse directory of HDFS. If we delete a Managed table, both the table data and metadata for that table will be deleted from the HDFS.