Difference between Internal and External table in Hive

Question

Accepted Answer

Internal tables store data in a Hive-managed warehouse while external tables store data outside of Hive.

Internal tables are managed by Hive and are stored in a Hive warehouse directory
External tables are not managed by Hive and can be stored in any location accessible by Hive
Dropping an internal table also drops the data while dropping an external table only drops the metadata
Internal tables are faster for querying as they are stored in a Hive-managed warehouse
External tables are useful for sharing data between different systems or for accessing data stored in Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)

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