Auto-enable deletion vectors

  • Article

Use this workspace setting to configure whether new Delta tables are created with deletion vectors enabled by default.

This setting applies to all tables created using Databricks SQL warehouses and clusters running Databricks Runtime 14.0 and above.

Note

This setting does not apply to tables created with Delta Live Tables.

Databricks recommends using deletion vectors for all tables except for those used in workloads with incompatible Databricks Runtime versions or external Delta clients. See What are deletion vectors?.

Tables with deletion vectors enabled automatically leverage predictive I/O for updates in Photon-enabled clusters. See Use predictive I/O to accelerate updates.

To manage this setting:

  1. Go to the settings page.
  2. Click the Advanced tab.
  3. Select your desired behavior from the dropdown next to Auto-Enable Deletion Vectors.
  4. Click Save.

What are the available options?

You can choose from the following options:

Option Effect
Default Varies by workspace. See What is the default setting for auto-enable deletion vectors?
New UC managed and Databricks SQL tables Enable deletion vectors on all new Delta tables managed by Unity Catalog or created in Databricks SQL.
All new tables Enable deletion vectors on all new Delta tables.
Disabled Do not automatically enable deletion vectors.

Note

You must restart any running compute to apply changes to this setting.

What is the default setting for auto-enable deletion vectors?

The default value for the Auto-Enable Deletion Vectors setting varies by region. Databricks encourages admins to manually configure one of the explicit choices.

Databricks is actively rolling out this setting to all workspaces. Check the workspace admin UI to see the current value in your workspace.

Workspaces still in the introductory period have this featured disabled by default.

After the rollout is complete, all workspaces will see the behavior associated with the Default option changes from Disabled to All new tables. To avoid having this change automatically applied to your workspaces, select an option other than Default.

Databricks recommends selecting Disabled if you read newly created tables using clients that don’t support deletion vectors. See Compatibility with Delta clients.