DROP The DROP command removes a table from the database. All the tables' rows, indexes and privileges will also be removed. No DML triggers will be fired. The operation cannot be rolled back. TRUNCATE TRUNCATE removes all rows from a table. The operation cannot be rolled back and no triggers will be fired. As such, TRUNCATE is faster and doesn't use as much undo space as a DELETE. Table level lock will be added when Truncating. DELETE The DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. A WHERE clause can be used to only remove some rows. If no WHERE condition is specified, all rows will be removed. After performing a DELETE operation you need to COMMIT or ROLLBACK the transaction to make the change permanent or to undo it. Note that this operation will cause all DELETE triggers on the table to fire. Row level lock will be added when deleting.

来自:http://www.orafaq.com/faq/difference_between_truncate_delete_and_drop_commands

最大的区别是truncate是不记录日志的操作，而delete是。

简单地说，这意味着在数据库崩溃的情况下，不能通过截断恢复所操作的数据，但可以通过删除恢复。

详情请点击这里

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.

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

下面是一些不同之处。我强调了特定于oracle的特性，希望社区也能添加其他供应商的特定差异。对于大多数供应商来说常见的差异可以直接放在标题下面，并在下面突出显示差异。

总体概述

如果您想要快速删除表中的所有行，并且您确实确定要这样做，并且表上没有外键，那么TRUNCATE可能会比delete更快。

必须考虑各种特定于系统的问题，详情如下。

语句类型

删除是DML，截断是DDL(什么是DDL和DML?)

提交和回滚

供应商变量

SQL *服务器

Truncate可以回滚。

PostgreSQL

Truncate可以回滚。

甲骨文

因为TRUNCATE是DDL，它涉及两次提交，一次在语句执行之前，一次在语句执行之后。因此，Truncate不能回滚，截断过程中的失败无论如何都会发出提交。

然而，请看下面的闪回。

空间回收

Delete不能恢复空间，Truncate只能恢复空间

甲骨文

如果使用了REUSE STORAGE子句，那么数据段就不会被重新分配，如果要用数据重新加载表，这样做的效率会稍微高一些。重置高水位标志。

行范围

Delete可用于删除所有行或仅删除行的子集。Truncate删除所有行。

甲骨文

在对表进行分区时，可以隔离地截断各个分区，从而可以部分删除表的所有数据。

对象类型

Delete可以应用于集群内的表和表。Truncate仅适用于表或整个集群。(可能是Oracle特有的)

数据对象标识

甲骨文

Delete不会影响数据对象id，但truncate会分配一个新的数据对象id，除非自该表创建以来从未对该表进行过插入操作。即使是一个回滚的插入操作也会导致在截断时分配一个新的数据对象id。

闪回(Oracle)

闪回可以跨删除操作，但截断操作可以防止闪回操作之前的状态。

然而，从11gR2 FLASHBACK ARCHIVE功能允许这一点，除了在快速版

在Oracle中使用FLASHBACK http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/appdev.112/e41502/adfns_flashback.htm#ADFNS638

特权

变量

甲骨文

可以将一个表上的Delete授权给另一个用户或角色，但是截断不能不使用DROP ANY table授权。

Redo /。

删除会产生少量的重做和大量的撤销。Truncate生成的两者数量都可以忽略不计。

索引

甲骨文

截断操作使不可用的索引重新可用。删除则不然。

外键

当启用的外键引用表时，不能应用截断。使用delete的处理取决于外键的配置。

表锁

甲骨文

Truncate需要一个排他表锁，delete需要一个共享表锁。因此，禁用表锁是防止对表进行截断操作的一种方法。

触发器

DML触发器不会在截断时触发。

甲骨文

DDL触发器是可用的。

远程执行

甲骨文

不能在数据库链接上发出Truncate命令。

标识列

SQL *服务器

Truncate重置IDENTITY列类型的序列，delete则不会。

结果集

在大多数实现中，DELETE语句可以向客户端返回已删除的行。

例如，在Oracle PL/SQL子程序中，你可以:

DELETE FROM employees_temp
WHERE       employee_id = 299 
RETURNING   first_name,
            last_name
INTO        emp_first_name,
            emp_last_name;

微软sql server的另一个不同之处在于，使用delete，你可以使用output语句来跟踪哪些记录被删除了，例如:

delete from [SomeTable]
output deleted.Id, deleted.Name

你不能用truncate这样做。