When doing minimal logging SQL Server logs only page/extent
allocations instead of logging individual rows. For example, if N rows fit in a
page, without minimal logging there will be N log records. With minimal logging
there will be only 1 log record.
The following conditions need to be satisfied for minimal logging. -
1.
Database in Simple or Bulk Logged Recovery
Model.
2.
Select INTO is Always Minimal Logged.
3.
For Other Bulk Import Methods (INSERT INTO SELECT, BCP, BulkInsert ) the
following additional conditions need to be satisfied.
·
TABLOCK must be specified on target table.
·
If the target table has indexes it must be
empty.
·
If the table has no indexes it need not be
empty.
Note: For a table with indexes, If you specify batch size
for inserts (BCP/BulkInsert), only the first batch will be empty and will be
minimally logged.