What is a crucial factor when deciding between a Type 1 table and Type 2 table for handling street addresses in Delta Lake?

Choosing between a Type 1 table and a Type 2 table for managing street addresses in Delta Lake hinges heavily on how address data will be utilized over time. A Type 2 table is valuable for scenarios where you need to maintain historical versions of data, as it keeps all changes and allows for detailed tracking of changes over time. However, this approach can lead to increased costs and latency when performing time travel queries due to the need to scan through multiple versions of data.

When you implement a Type 2 table, you effectively create a new record each time there is a change, which increases the volume of data stored and can also complicate queries, particularly those that rely on historical data retrieval. This additional overhead can slow down the performance of queries that need to access multiple transactions or versions of data associated with the same record.

In contrast, a Type 1 table simply overwrites existing data without keeping a history of changes. This results in lower costs and faster query performance, especially for current data operations. Therefore, understanding the implications of maintaining historical data versus needing real-time updates is crucial, and this consideration directly leads to the assessment regarding costs and latency in time travel queries associated with Type 2 tables.