A data engineer is attempting to drop a Spark SQL table my_table. The data engineer wants to delete all table metadata and data. They run the…

An external table is a table that is defined in the metastore and points to an existing location in the

storage system. When you drop an external table, only the metadata is deleted from the metastore,

but the data files are not deleted from the storage system. This is because external tables are meant

to be shared by multiple applications and users, and dropping them should not affect the data

availability. On the other hand, a managed table is a table that is defined in the metastore and also

managed by the metastore. When you drop a managed table, both the metadata and the data files

are deleted from the metastore and the storage system, respectively. This is because managed tables

are meant to be exclusive to the application or user that created them, and dropping them should

free up the storage space. Therefore, the correct answer is C, because the table was external and

only the metadata was deleted when the table was dropped. Reference: Databricks Documentation -

Managed and External Tables, Databricks Documentation - Drop Table