Top Function - response (8) by dnoeth

Hi Ratnam,
SAMPLE (RANDOMIZED ALLOCATION) returns a truely random result while TOP n (without PERCENT/ORDER BY) simply returns the first n rows found on a single AMP (or multiple AMPs). SAMPLE is always more overhead/slower compared to TOP (without PERCENT/ORDER BY)
If you just want to see some data better use TOP, if you do some statistical stuff switch to SAMPLE.
Btw, what is MECONOSAM LEVEL?