Using Power BI REST API instead of scheduled update

[MbProg]

I have the following question:

Power BI enables the user to update its data on a regular schedule. Now we have a customer with a table of 25 Mio rows. As I know, the scheduled data refresh first deletes the whole data in Power BI and then inserts the whole data from the data source again. That means a lot of time for 25 Mio rows.

My idea was to import the data (25 Mio rows) just once and then update the via Power Bi Rest API, so that just the new and updated data are sent to Power Bi. What do you think about that?

Secondly I wanted to ask, if Power BI Rest API could not replace the scheduled data refresh at all?

[BhaveshPatel]

It never deletes the data while you refresh. It gets stored in caches and next time it takes less time to refresh the data as it does have some stored data in cache. Do not delete/clear the cache otherwise the process would start from scratch and yo would have to wait longer to get you results.

[MbProg]

@BhaveshPatel

In this post I was told that it uploads the whole data from the source and replaces it with the current data:

http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Service/Does-updating-data-process-download-all-data-from-the-source...

So why still using a cache if you upload the whole data anyway?

[BhaveshPatel]

Hi 

That is for the PowerBI Service and not for the Desktop. Cache storage is for the Desktop version only.

[BhaveshPatel · Accepted solution]

Please find the more information on PowerBI Documentation for Data Refresh

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-refresh-data/

Imagine how long does it going to take.