What is the maximum size of data can power query analyze and process?

[Fathima_Shazna]

Recently we were working on a report with a String mapping query. The Power Query kept loading for hours and more than 50 GBs and ran into an error. The same source data (3.95 GBs in size) was used to create a Power BI dashboard and that works fine- though it takes a while to load, (approx 5mins). But when we tried to do a simple mapping with the same source. We were told that PowerBI isn't the ideal tool for large data. I would like to know the opinions of Power BI experts in this group.  

[v-yuaj-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Fathima_Shazna ,

Thanks for your reply. 

First of all, sorry for that there is no official explanation about the processing restrictions in Power Query Editor, but 50GB is so large that I doubt if your computer can run it sucessfully.

What is the suffix of your data source? Is the true size of your data source 3.5GB?

The error message in the screenshot you provided earlier seems to indicate that your excel file is invalid and Power BI cannot recognize it. Could you please tell me what version of Power BI Desktop you are using? It is recommended that you can try the old version (for example, the version in December 2020) and verify whether your datasource can be imported successfully.

Hope that's what you were looking for.

Best Regards,

Yuna

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[v-yuaj-msft]

Hi @Fathima_Shazna ,

Maybe I'm not getting what actually you are trying to do.
Could you please tell me what data source and connect mode are you using? Do you want to know the limitation of data processing in Power Query Editor or would like to find a better way to process your data?

Can you please share more detailed information about these issues? (e.g. snapshot, error message, configurations...) 

Best Regards,

Yuna

[Fathima_Shazna]

Hi Yuna,

Thanks for replying to my question and trying to help me with the issue. The data source used is excel spreadsheets and I would like to know the answers for both the questions; limitation of processing in Power Query Editor and the better way to process data. 

Regards, 

Shazna