Why is DataTable faster than DataReader

Question

So we have had a heated debate at work as to which DataAccess route to take: DataTable or DataReader.

DISCLAIMER I am on the DataReader side and these results have shaken my world.

We ended up writing some benchmarks to test the speed differences. It was generally agreed that a DataReader is faster, but we wanted to see how much faster.

The results surprised us. The DataTable was consistently faster than the DataReader. Approaching twice as fast sometimes.

So I turn to you, members of SO. Why, when most of the documentation and even Microsoft, state that a DataReader is faster are our test showing otherwise.

And now for the code:

The test harness:

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch sw = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
        sw.Start();

        DateTime date = DateTime.Parse("01/01/1900");

        for (int i = 1; i < 1000; i++)
        {

            using (DataTable aDataTable = ArtifactBusinessModel.BusinessLogic.ArtifactBL.RetrieveDTModified(date))
            {
            }
        }
        sw.Stop();
        long dataTableTotalSeconds = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

        sw.Restart();


        for (int i = 1; i < 1000; i++)
        {
            List<ArtifactBusinessModel.Entities.ArtifactString> aList = ArtifactBusinessModel.BusinessLogic.ArtifactBL.RetrieveModified(date);

        }

        sw.Stop();

        long listTotalSeconds = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;

        MessageBox.Show(String.Format("list:{0}, table:{1}", listTotalSeconds, dataTableTotalSeconds));
    }

This is the DAL for the DataReader:

        internal static List<ArtifactString> RetrieveByModifiedDate(DateTime modifiedLast)
        {
            List<ArtifactString> artifactList = new List<ArtifactString>();

            try
            {
                using (SqlConnection conn = SecuredResource.GetSqlConnection("Artifacts"))
                {
                    using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("[cache].[Artifacts_SEL_ByModifiedDate]", conn))
                    {
                        command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
                        command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@LastModifiedDate", modifiedLast));
                        using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader())
                        {
                            int formNumberOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("FormNumber");
                            int formOwnerOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("FormOwner");
                            int descriptionOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("Description");
                            int descriptionLongOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("DescriptionLong");
                            int thumbnailURLOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("ThumbnailURL");
                            int onlineSampleURLOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("OnlineSampleURL");
                            int lastModifiedMetaDataOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("LastModifiedMetaData");
                            int lastModifiedArtifactFileOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("LastModifiedArtifactFile");
                            int lastModifiedThumbnailOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("LastModifiedThumbnail");
                            int effectiveDateOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("EffectiveDate");
                            int viewabilityOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("Viewability");
                            int formTypeOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("FormType");
                            int inventoryTypeOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("InventoryType");
                            int createDateOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("CreateDate");

                            while (reader.Read())
                            {
                                ArtifactString artifact = new ArtifactString();
                                ArtifactDAL.Map(formNumberOrdinal, formOwnerOrdinal, descriptionOrdinal, descriptionLongOrdinal, formTypeOrdinal, inventoryTypeOrdinal, createDateOrdinal, thumbnailURLOrdinal, onlineSampleURLOrdinal, lastModifiedMetaDataOrdinal, lastModifiedArtifactFileOrdinal, lastModifiedThumbnailOrdinal, effectiveDateOrdinal, viewabilityOrdinal, reader, artifact);
                                artifactList.Add(artifact);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (ApplicationException)
            {
                throw;
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                string errMsg = String.Format("Error in ArtifactDAL.RetrieveByModifiedDate. Date: {0}", modifiedLast);
                Logging.Log(Severity.Error, errMsg, e);
                throw new ApplicationException(errMsg, e);
            }

            return artifactList;
        }
    internal static void Map(int? formNumberOrdinal, int? formOwnerOrdinal, int? descriptionOrdinal, int? descriptionLongOrdinal, int? formTypeOrdinal, int? inventoryTypeOrdinal, int? createDateOrdinal,
        int? thumbnailURLOrdinal, int? onlineSampleURLOrdinal, int? lastModifiedMetaDataOrdinal, int? lastModifiedArtifactFileOrdinal, int? lastModifiedThumbnailOrdinal,
        int? effectiveDateOrdinal, int? viewabilityOrdinal, IDataReader dr, ArtifactString entity)
    {

            entity.FormNumber = dr[formNumberOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.FormOwner = dr[formOwnerOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.Description = dr[descriptionOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.DescriptionLong = dr[descriptionLongOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.FormType = dr[formTypeOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.InventoryType = dr[inventoryTypeOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.CreateDate = DateTime.Parse(dr[createDateOrdinal.Value].ToString());
            entity.ThumbnailURL = dr[thumbnailURLOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.OnlineSampleURL = dr[onlineSampleURLOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.LastModifiedMetaData = dr[lastModifiedMetaDataOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.LastModifiedArtifactFile = dr[lastModifiedArtifactFileOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.LastModifiedThumbnail = dr[lastModifiedThumbnailOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.EffectiveDate = dr[effectiveDateOrdinal.Value].ToString();
            entity.Viewability = dr[viewabilityOrdinal.Value].ToString();
    }

This is the DAL for the DataTable:

        internal static DataTable RetrieveDTByModifiedDate(DateTime modifiedLast)
        {
            DataTable dt= new DataTable("Artifacts");

            try
            {
                using (SqlConnection conn = SecuredResource.GetSqlConnection("Artifacts"))
                {
                    using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("[cache].[Artifacts_SEL_ByModifiedDate]", conn))
                    {
                        command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
                        command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@LastModifiedDate", modifiedLast));

                        using (SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(command))
                        {
                            da.Fill(dt);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (ApplicationException)
            {
                throw;
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                string errMsg = String.Format("Error in ArtifactDAL.RetrieveByModifiedDate. Date: {0}", modifiedLast);
                Logging.Log(Severity.Error, errMsg, e);
                throw new ApplicationException(errMsg, e);
            }

            return dt;
        }

The results:

For 10 iterations within the Test Harness

For 1000 iterations within the Test Harness

These results are the second run, to mitigate the differences due to creating the connection.

Answer 1

I see three issues:

1. the way you use a DataReader negates it's big single-item-in-memory advantage by converting it to list,
2. you're running the benchmark in an environment that differs significantly from production in a way that favors the DataTable, and
3. you're spending time converting DataReader record to Artifact objects that is not duplicated in the DataTable code.

The main advantage of a DataReader is that you don't have to load everything into memory at once. This should be a huge advantage for DataReader in web apps, where memory, rather than cpu, is often the bottleneck, but by adding each row to a generic list you've negated this. That also means that even after you change your code to only use one record at a time, the difference might not show up on your benchmarks because you're running them on a system with lot of free memory, which will favor the DataTable. Also, the DataReader version is spending time parsing the results into Artifact objects that the DataTable has not done yet.

To fix the DataReader usage issue, change List<ArtifactString> to IEnumerable<ArtifactString> everywhere, and in your DataReader DAL change this line:

artifactList.Add(artifact);

to this:

yield return artifact;

This means you also need to add code that iterates over the results to your DataReader test harness to keep things fair.

I'm not sure how to adjust the benchmark to create a more typical scenario that is fair to both DataTable and DataReader, except to build two versions of your page, and serve up each version for an hour under a similar production-level load so that we have real memory pressure... do some real A/B testing. Also, make sure you cover converting the DataTable rows to Artifacts... and if the argument is that you need to do this for a DataReader, but not for a DataTable, that is just plain wrong.