A user is preparing to load data from an external stage Which practice will provide the MOST efficient loading performance?

Question

Options

• AOrganize files into logical paths
• BStore the files on the external stage to ensure caching is maintained
• CUse pattern matching for regular expression execution
• DLoad the data in one large file

• A
  91% (20)
• C
  5% (1)
• D
  5% (1)

Explanation

Organizing files into logical paths (e.g., by date, region, or category) in an external stage allows Snowflake to use path prefixes to scope the COPY INTO command to only the relevant subset of files, dramatically reducing the overhead of file listing and scanning. This is the most impactful best practice for loading performance. Option B is incorrect because external stages (S3, Azure Blob, GCS) are not within Snowflake's caching layer. Option C is incorrect because using PATTERN with regular expressions adds processing overhead rather than improving it. Option D is wrong because Snowflake recommends loading many smaller files (ideally 100–250 MB compressed) in parallel rather than one large file, as it enables parallel loading across the virtual warehouse nodes.

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