DELETE语句可以有一个WHERE子句来删除特定的记录，而TRUNCATE语句不需要任何子句并擦除整个表。 重要的是，DELETE语句记录删除日期，而TRUNCATE语句不记录删除日期。

都是很好的答案，我必须补充一句:

由于TRUNCATE TABLE是一个DDL(数据定义语言)命令，而不是DML(数据操作语言)命令，删除触发器不会运行。

SQL server中删除与截断的总结 完整文章请点击这个链接:http://codaffection.com/sql-server-article/delete-vs-truncate-in-sql-server/

摘自dotnet mob文章:删除Vs截断SQL Server

DELETE语句:该命令只根据where子句中给定的条件从表中删除行，如果没有指定条件，则从表中删除所有行。但是它不会释放包含表的空间。

SQL DELETE语句的语法是:

DELETE FROM table_name [WHERE condition];

TRUNCATE语句:该命令用于删除表中的所有行，并释放包含表的空间。

如果不小心使用Delete/Truncate从表中删除了所有数据。您可以回滚已提交的事务。恢复上次备份并运行事务日志，直到将要执行删除/截断操作。

以下相关信息来自一篇博客文章:

While working on database, we are using Delete and Truncate without knowing the differences between them. In this article we will discuss the difference between Delete and Truncate in Sql. Delete: Delete is a DML command. Delete statement is executed using a row lock,each row in the table is locked for deletion. We can specify filters in where clause. It deletes specified data if where condition exists. Delete activities a trigger because the operation are logged individually. Slower than Truncate because it Keeps logs Truncate Truncate is a DDL command. Truncate table always lock the table and page but not each row.As it removes all the data. Cannot use Where condition. It Removes all the data. Truncate table cannot activate a trigger because the operation does not log individual row deletions. Faster in performance wise, because it doesn't keep any logs. Note: Delete and Truncate both can be rolled back when used with Transaction. If Transaction is done, means committed then we can not rollback Truncate command, but we can still rollback Delete command from Log files, as delete write records them in Log file in case it is needed to rollback in future from log files. If you have a Foreign key constraint referring to the table you are trying to truncate, this won't work even if the referring table has no data in it. This is because the foreign key checking is done with DDL rather than DML. This can be got around by temporarily disabling the foreign key constraint(s) to the table. Delete table is a logged operation. So the deletion of each row gets logged in the transaction log, which makes it slow. Truncate table also deletes all the rows in a table, but it won't log the deletion of each row instead it logs the deallocation of the data pages of the table, which makes it faster. ~ If accidentally you removed all the data from table using Delete/Truncate. You can rollback committed transaction. Restore the last backup and run transaction log till the time when Delete/Truncate is about to happen.

对于SQL Server或MySQL，如果有一个带有自动递增的PK, truncate将重置计数器。