Two ways Worked for me to get count of rows from hbase table with Speed
Scenario #1
If hbase table size is small then login to hbase shell with valid user and execute
>count '<tablename>'
Example
>count 'employee'
6 row(s) in 0.1110 seconds
Scenario #2
If hbase table size is large,then execute inbuilt RowCounter map reduce job: Login to hadoop machine with valid user and execute:
/$HBASE_HOME/bin/hbase org.apache.hadoop.hbase.mapreduce.RowCounter '<tablename>'
Example:
/$HBASE_HOME/bin/hbase org.apache.hadoop.hbase.mapreduce.RowCounter 'employee'
....
....
....
Virtual memory (bytes) snapshot=22594633728
Total committed heap usage (bytes)=5093457920
org.apache.hadoop.hbase.mapreduce.RowCounter$RowCounterMapper$Counters
ROWS=6
File Input Format Counters
Bytes Read=0
File Output Format Counters
Bytes Written=0