Specify a managed storage ___location in Unity Catalog

A managed storage ___location specifies a ___location in cloud object storage for storing data for managed tables and managed volumes.

You can associate a managed storage ___location with a metastore, catalog, or schema. Managed storage locations at lower levels in the hierarchy override storage locations defined at higher levels when managed tables or managed volumes are created.

Databricks recommends that you assign managed storage at the catalog level for logical data isolation, with metastore-level and schema-level as options.

New workspaces that are enabled for Unity Catalog automatically are created without a metastore-level managed storage ___location. However, metastore-level storage is required for some functionality, like using personal staging locations as a Databricks partner. See Automatic enablement of Unity Catalog, Data governance and data isolation building blocks, and Create a Unity Catalog metastore.

What is a managed storage ___location?

Managed storage locations have the following properties:

• Managed tables and managed volumes store data and metadata files in managed storage locations.
• Managed storage locations cannot overlap with external tables or external volumes.

The following table describes how a managed storage ___location is declared and associated with Unity Catalog objects:

The managed storage ___location that stores data and metadata for managed tables and managed volumes uses the following rules:

• If the containing schema has a managed ___location, the data is stored in the schema managed ___location.
• If the containing schema does not have a managed ___location but the catalog has a managed ___location, the data is stored in the catalog managed ___location.
• If neither the containing schema nor the containing catalog have a managed ___location, data is stored in the metastore managed ___location.

Unity Catalog prevents overlap of ___location governance. See How do paths work for data managed by Unity Catalog?.

Managed storage ___location, storage root, and storage ___location

When you specify a MANAGED LOCATION for a catalog or schema, the provided ___location is tracked as the Storage Root in Unity Catalog. To ensure that all managed entities have a unique ___location, Unity Catalog adds hashed subdirectories to the specified ___location, using the following format:

The fully qualified path for the managed storage ___location is tracked as the Storage Location in Unity Catalog.

You can specify the same managed storage ___location for multiple schemas and catalogs.

Required privileges

Users who have the CREATE MANAGED STORAGE privilege on an external ___location can configure managed storage locations during catalog or schema creation.

Account admins can add an optional managed storage ___location at the metastore level.

Set a managed storage ___location for a metastore

To set a managed storage ___location for a metastore, see Add managed storage to an existing metastore.

Set a managed storage ___location for a catalog

Set a managed storage ___location for a catalog by using the MANAGED LOCATION keyword during catalog creation, as in the following example:

CREATE CATALOG <catalog-name>
MANAGED LOCATION 'abfss://<container-name>@<storage-account>.dfs.core.windows.net/<path>/<directory>';

You can also use Catalog Explorer to set the managed storage ___location for a catalog. See Create catalogs.

Set a managed storage ___location for a schema

Set a managed storage ___location for a schema by using the MANAGED LOCATION keyword during schema creation, as in the following example:

CREATE SCHEMA <catalog>.<schema-name>
MANAGED LOCATION 'abfss://<container-name>@<storage-account>.dfs.core.windows.net/<path>/<directory>';

You can also use Catalog Explorer to set the managed storage ___location for a schema. See Create schemas.

Next steps

Unity Catalog uses managed storage locations automatically when you create managed tables and managed volumes. See Work with managed tables and What are Unity Catalog volumes?.