Table variables are another types of temporary objects to store transient data. Please refer Temporary Table objects for more details about Temporary Tables in SQL Server.

Differences between Table Variables and Temporary tables

When do you use Temporary Tables over Table Variables, vice versa

So, now we should be good enough to take a decision on when do we need to use table variable and Temporary tables. I would like to reiterate statistics as one of the most important factor. Table variable does not have statistics where as temporary table has statistics maintained. As SQL Server optimizer is based on cost- based optimization, statistics are very important factor for Cost based approach to identify the best plan for your query. If your transient data is more than 100, I would suggest to use Temporary tables(with right indexes) over table variables to make use of the statistics to help SQL Server to identify the best plan for us.

DECLARE @TabVariableTesting TABLE (
 id INT PRIMARY KEY,
 ScrambledData Varchar(7000)
)

INSERT INTO @TabVariableTesting 
SELECT number, Replicate('SQLZEalot',100)
 FROM master..spt_values WHERE NAME IS NULL

SELECT * FROM @TabVariableTesting WHERE id > 75


CREATE TABLE #TempTableTesting (
 id INT PRIMARY KEY,
 somecolumn Varchar(7000)
)

INSERT INTO #TempTableTesting
SELECT number, Replicate('SQLZEalot',100)
 FROM master..spt_values WHERE NAME IS NULL

SELECT * FROM #TempTableTesting WHERE id > 75

DROP TABLE #TempTableTesting

In other words, if you have very less data, then I would prefer to use table variables over temporary tables. If you need to store data in a user defined function, table variables are the way for you currently. The choice is not hard rule one, but choose the best for your needs/requirements.

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