As organizations scale their data workloads, choosing the right storage mode in Microsoft Fabric becomes critical for achieving performance, efficiency, and agility. This session empowers architects and technical decision makers to confidently design solutions that balance speed, scale, and cost using the latest capabilities in Fabric.
We’ll dive deep into the pros and cons of Direct Lake, Import, and DirectQuery—exploring how each mode handles large volumes of data, caching, eviction strategies, and memory utilization. Learn how to optimize for performance through compression, partitioning, and refresh logic.
The session concludes with a live performance comparison demo that highlights key differences in responsiveness, load times, and user interactivity across the three storage modes.
You Will Learn:
• How to select the right storage mode based on data volume, refresh needs, and performance goals
• When and why Fabric evicts data from cache—and how to manage it
• Practical techniques for optimizing memory usage and query responsiveness
• Real-world performance results from Direct Lake, Import, and DirectQuery under pressure