[c#] Fastest Way of Inserting in Entity Framework

I'm looking for the fastest way of inserting into Entity Framework.

I'm asking this because of the scenario where you have an active TransactionScope and the insertion is huge (4000+). It can potentially last more than 10 minutes (default timeout of transactions), and this will lead to an incomplete transaction.

I'm looking for the fastest way of inserting into Entity Framework

There are some third-party libraries supporting Bulk Insert available:

• Z.EntityFramework.Extensions (Recommended)
• EFUtilities
• EntityFramework.BulkInsert

See: Entity Framework Bulk Insert library

Be careful, when choosing a bulk insert library. Only Entity Framework Extensions supports all kind of associations and inheritances and it's the only one still supported.

Disclaimer: I'm the owner of Entity Framework Extensions

This library allows you to perform all bulk operations you need for your scenarios:

• Bulk SaveChanges
• Bulk Insert
• Bulk Delete
• Bulk Update
• Bulk Merge

Example

// Easy to use
context.BulkSaveChanges();

// Easy to customize
context.BulkSaveChanges(bulk => bulk.BatchSize = 100);

// Perform Bulk Operations
context.BulkDelete(customers);
context.BulkInsert(customers);
context.BulkUpdate(customers);

// Customize Primary Key
context.BulkMerge(customers, operation => {
   operation.ColumnPrimaryKeyExpression = 
        customer => customer.Code;
});

SqlBulkCopy is super quick

This is my implementation:

// at some point in my calling code, I will call:
var myDataTable = CreateMyDataTable();
myDataTable.Rows.Add(Guid.NewGuid,tableHeaderId,theName,theValue); // e.g. - need this call for each row to insert

var efConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyWebConfigEfConnection"].ConnectionString;
var efConnectionStringBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder(efConnectionString);
var connectionString = efConnectionStringBuilder.ProviderConnectionString;
BulkInsert(connectionString, myDataTable);

private DataTable CreateMyDataTable()
{
    var myDataTable = new DataTable { TableName = "MyTable"};
// this table has an identity column - don't need to specify that
    myDataTable.Columns.Add("MyTableRecordGuid", typeof(Guid));
    myDataTable.Columns.Add("MyTableHeaderId", typeof(int));
    myDataTable.Columns.Add("ColumnName", typeof(string));
    myDataTable.Columns.Add("ColumnValue", typeof(string));
    return myDataTable;
}

private void BulkInsert(string connectionString, DataTable dataTable)
{
    using (var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        SqlTransaction transaction = null;
        try
        {
            transaction = connection.BeginTransaction();

            using (var sqlBulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(connection, SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock, transaction))
            {
                sqlBulkCopy.DestinationTableName = dataTable.TableName;
                foreach (DataColumn column in dataTable.Columns) {
                    sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add(column.ColumnName, column.ColumnName);
                }

                sqlBulkCopy.WriteToServer(dataTable);
            }
            transaction.Commit();
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            transaction?.Rollback();
            throw;
        }
    }
}

The secret is to insert into an identical blank staging table. Inserts are lightening quick. Then run a single insert from that into your main large table. Then truncate the staging table ready for the next batch.

ie.

insert into some_staging_table using Entity Framework.

-- Single insert into main table (this could be a tiny stored proc call)
insert into some_main_already_large_table (columns...)
   select (columns...) from some_staging_table
truncate table some_staging_table

Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = false; Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = false;

these are too effect to speed without AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false; and i advise to use different table header from dbo. generally i use like nop,sop,tbl etc..

Here is a performance comparison between using Entity Framework and using SqlBulkCopy class on a realistic example: How to Bulk Insert Complex Objects into SQL Server Database

As others already emphasized, ORMs are not meant to be used in bulk operations. They offer flexibility, separation of concerns and other benefits, but bulk operations (except bulk reading) are not one of them.

You may use Bulk package library. Bulk Insert 1.0.0 version is used in projects having Entity framework >=6.0.0 .

More description can be found here- Bulkoperation source code

[NEW SOLUTION FOR POSTGRESQL] Hey, I know it's quite an old post, but I have recently run into similar problem, but we were using Postgresql. I wanted to use effective bulkinsert, what turned out to be pretty difficult. I haven't found any proper free library to do so on this DB. I have only found this helper: https://bytefish.de/blog/postgresql_bulk_insert/ which is also on Nuget. I have written a small mapper, which auto mapped properties the way Entity Framework:

public static PostgreSQLCopyHelper<T> CreateHelper<T>(string schemaName, string tableName)
        {
            var helper = new PostgreSQLCopyHelper<T>("dbo", "\"" + tableName + "\"");
            var properties = typeof(T).GetProperties();
            foreach(var prop in properties)
            {
                var type = prop.PropertyType;
                if (Attribute.IsDefined(prop, typeof(KeyAttribute)) || Attribute.IsDefined(prop, typeof(ForeignKeyAttribute)))
                    continue;
                switch (type)
                {
                    case Type intType when intType == typeof(int) || intType == typeof(int?):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapInteger("\"" + prop.Name + "\"",  x => (int?)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type stringType when stringType == typeof(string):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapText("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (string)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type dateType when dateType == typeof(DateTime) || dateType == typeof(DateTime?):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapTimeStamp("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (DateTime?)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type decimalType when decimalType == typeof(decimal) || decimalType == typeof(decimal?):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapMoney("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (decimal?)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type doubleType when doubleType == typeof(double) || doubleType == typeof(double?):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapDouble("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (double?)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type floatType when floatType == typeof(float) || floatType == typeof(float?):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapReal("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (float?)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                    case Type guidType when guidType == typeof(Guid):
                        {
                            helper = helper.MapUUID("\"" + prop.Name + "\"", x => (Guid)typeof(T).GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(x, null));
                            break;
                        }
                }
            }
            return helper;
        }

I use it the following way (I had entity named Undertaking):

var undertakingHelper = BulkMapper.CreateHelper<Model.Undertaking>("dbo", nameof(Model.Undertaking));
undertakingHelper.SaveAll(transaction.UnderlyingTransaction.Connection as Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection, undertakingsToAdd));

I showed an example with transaction, but it can also be done with normal connection retrieved from context. undertakingsToAdd is enumerable of normal entity records, which I want to bulkInsert into DB.

This solution, to which I've got after few hours of research and trying, is as you could expect much faster and finally easy to use and free! I really advice you to use this solution, not only for the reasons mentioned above, but also because it's the only one with which I had no problems with Postgresql itself, many other solutions work flawlessly for example with SqlServer.

I would recommend this article on how to do bulk inserts using EF.

Entity Framework and slow bulk INSERTs

He explores these areas and compares perfomance:

1. Default EF (57 minutes to complete adding 30,000 records)
2. Replacing with ADO.NET Code (25 seconds for those same 30,000)
3. Context Bloat- Keep the active Context Graph small by using a new context for each Unit of Work (same 30,000 inserts take 33 seconds)
4. Large Lists - Turn off AutoDetectChangesEnabled (brings the time down to about 20 seconds)
5. Batching (down to 16 seconds)
6. DbTable.AddRange() - (performance is in the 12 range)

I agree with Adam Rackis. SqlBulkCopy is the fastest way of transferring bulk records from one data source to another. I used this to copy 20K records and it took less than 3 seconds. Have a look at the example below.

public static void InsertIntoMembers(DataTable dataTable)
{           
    using (var connection = new SqlConnection(@"data source=;persist security info=True;user id=;password=;initial catalog=;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework"))
    {
        SqlTransaction transaction = null;
        connection.Open();
        try
        {
            transaction = connection.BeginTransaction();
            using (var sqlBulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(connection, SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock, transaction))
            {
                sqlBulkCopy.DestinationTableName = "Members";
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Firstname", "Firstname");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Lastname", "Lastname");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("DOB", "DOB");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Gender", "Gender");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Email", "Email");

                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Address1", "Address1");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Address2", "Address2");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Address3", "Address3");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Address4", "Address4");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Postcode", "Postcode");

                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("MobileNumber", "MobileNumber");
                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("TelephoneNumber", "TelephoneNumber");

                sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("Deleted", "Deleted");

                sqlBulkCopy.WriteToServer(dataTable);
            }
            transaction.Commit();
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            transaction.Rollback();
        }

    }
}

As per my knowledge there is no BulkInsert in EntityFramework to increase the performance of the huge inserts.

In this scenario you can go with SqlBulkCopy in ADO.net to solve your problem

Dispose() context create problems if the entities you Add() rely on other preloaded entities (e.g. navigation properties) in the context

I use similar concept to keep my context small to achieve the same performance

But instead of Dispose() the context and recreate, I simply detach the entities that already SaveChanges()

public void AddAndSave<TEntity>(List<TEntity> entities) where TEntity : class {

const int CommitCount = 1000; //set your own best performance number here
int currentCount = 0;

while (currentCount < entities.Count())
{
    //make sure it don't commit more than the entities you have
    int commitCount = CommitCount;
    if ((entities.Count - currentCount) < commitCount)
        commitCount = entities.Count - currentCount;

    //e.g. Add entities [ i = 0 to 999, 1000 to 1999, ... , n to n+999... ] to conext
    for (int i = currentCount; i < (currentCount + commitCount); i++)        
        _context.Entry(entities[i]).State = System.Data.EntityState.Added;
        //same as calling _context.Set<TEntity>().Add(entities[i]);       

    //commit entities[n to n+999] to database
    _context.SaveChanges();

    //detach all entities in the context that committed to database
    //so it won't overload the context
    for (int i = currentCount; i < (currentCount + commitCount); i++)
        _context.Entry(entities[i]).State = System.Data.EntityState.Detached;

    currentCount += commitCount;
} }

wrap it with try catch and TrasactionScope() if you need, not showing them here for keeping the code clean

All the solutions written here don't help because when you do SaveChanges(), insert statements are sent to database one by one, that's how Entity works.

And if your trip to database and back is 50 ms for instance then time needed for insert is number of records x 50 ms.

You have to use BulkInsert, here is the link: https://efbulkinsert.codeplex.com/

I got insert time reduced from 5-6 minutes to 10-12 seconds by using it.

I have made an generic extension of @Slauma s example above;

public static class DataExtensions
{
    public static DbContext AddToContext<T>(this DbContext context, object entity, int count, int commitCount, bool recreateContext, Func<DbContext> contextCreator)
    {
        context.Set(typeof(T)).Add((T)entity);

        if (count % commitCount == 0)
        {
            context.SaveChanges();
            if (recreateContext)
            {
                context.Dispose();
                context = contextCreator.Invoke();
                context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
            }
        }
        return context;
    }
}

Usage:

public void AddEntities(List<YourEntity> entities)
{
    using (var transactionScope = new TransactionScope())
    {
        DbContext context = new YourContext();
        int count = 0;
        foreach (var entity in entities)
        {
            ++count;
            context = context.AddToContext<TenancyNote>(entity, count, 100, true,
                () => new YourContext());
        }
        context.SaveChanges();
        transactionScope.Complete();
    }
}

Another option is to use SqlBulkTools available from Nuget. It's very easy to use and has some powerful features.

Example:

var bulk = new BulkOperations();
var books = GetBooks();

using (TransactionScope trans = new TransactionScope())
{
    using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager
    .ConnectionStrings["SqlBulkToolsTest"].ConnectionString))
    {
        bulk.Setup<Book>()
            .ForCollection(books)
            .WithTable("Books") 
            .AddAllColumns()
            .BulkInsert()
            .Commit(conn);
    }

    trans.Complete();
}

See the documentation for more examples and advanced usage. Disclaimer: I am the author of this library and any views are of my own opinion.

This combination increase speed well enough.

context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
context.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = false;

Try to use a Stored Procedure that will get an XML of the data that you want to insert.

The fastest way would be using bulk insert extension, which I developed

note: this is a commercial product, not free of charge

It uses SqlBulkCopy and custom datareader to get max performance. As a result it is over 20 times faster than using regular insert or AddRange

usage is extremely simple

context.BulkInsert(hugeAmountOfEntities);

But, for more than (+4000) inserts i recommend to use stored procedure. attached the time elapsed. I did inserted it 11.788 rows in 20"

thats it code

 public void InsertDataBase(MyEntity entity)
    {
        repository.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("sp_mystored " +
                "@param1, @param2"
                 new SqlParameter("@param1", entity.property1),
                 new SqlParameter("@param2", entity.property2));
    }

One of the fastest ways to save a list you must apply the following code

context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
context.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = false;

AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false

Add, AddRange & SaveChanges: Doesn't detect changes.

ValidateOnSaveEnabled = false;

Doesn't detect change tracker

You must add nuget

Install-Package Z.EntityFramework.Extensions

Now you can use the following code

var context = new MyContext();

context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
context.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = false;

context.BulkInsert(list);
context.BulkSaveChanges();

Yes, SqlBulkUpdate is indeed the fastest tool for this type of task. I wanted to find "least effort" generic way for me in .NET Core so I ended up using great library from Marc Gravell called FastMember and writing one tiny extension method for entity framework DB context. Works lightning fast:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using FastMember;
using Microsoft.Data.SqlClient;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;

namespace Services.Extensions
{
    public static class DbContextExtensions
    {
        public static void BulkCopyToServer<T>(this DbContext db, IEnumerable<T> collection)
        {
            var messageEntityType = db.Model.FindEntityType(typeof(T));

            var tableName = messageEntityType.GetSchema() + "." + messageEntityType.GetTableName();
            var tableColumnMappings = messageEntityType.GetProperties()
                .ToDictionary(p => p.PropertyInfo.Name, p => p.GetColumnName());

            using (var connection = new SqlConnection(db.Database.GetDbConnection().ConnectionString))
            using (var bulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(connection))
            {
                foreach (var (field, column) in tableColumnMappings)
                {
                    bulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add(field, column);
                }

                using (var reader = ObjectReader.Create(collection, tableColumnMappings.Keys.ToArray()))
                {
                    bulkCopy.DestinationTableName = tableName;
                    connection.Open();
                    bulkCopy.WriteToServer(reader);
                    connection.Close();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

I know this is a very old question, but one guy here said that developed an extension method to use bulk insert with EF, and when I checked, I discovered that the library costs $599 today (for one developer). Maybe it makes sense for the entire library, however for just the bulk insert this is too much.

Here is a very simple extension method I made. I use that on pair with database first (do not tested with code first, but I think that works the same). Change YourEntities with the name of your context:

public partial class YourEntities : DbContext
{
    public async Task BulkInsertAllAsync<T>(IEnumerable<T> entities)
    {
        using (var conn = new SqlConnection(Database.Connection.ConnectionString))
        {
            await conn.OpenAsync();

            Type t = typeof(T);

            var bulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(conn)
            {
                DestinationTableName = GetTableName(t)
            };

            var table = new DataTable();

            var properties = t.GetProperties().Where(p => p.PropertyType.IsValueType || p.PropertyType == typeof(string));

            foreach (var property in properties)
            {
                Type propertyType = property.PropertyType;
                if (propertyType.IsGenericType &&
                    propertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(Nullable<>))
                {
                    propertyType = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(propertyType);
                }

                table.Columns.Add(new DataColumn(property.Name, propertyType));
            }

            foreach (var entity in entities)
            {
                table.Rows.Add(
                    properties.Select(property => property.GetValue(entity, null) ?? DBNull.Value).ToArray());
            }

            bulkCopy.BulkCopyTimeout = 0;
            await bulkCopy.WriteToServerAsync(table);
        }
    }

    public void BulkInsertAll<T>(IEnumerable<T> entities)
    {
        using (var conn = new SqlConnection(Database.Connection.ConnectionString))
        {
            conn.Open();

            Type t = typeof(T);

            var bulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(conn)
            {
                DestinationTableName = GetTableName(t)
            };

            var table = new DataTable();

            var properties = t.GetProperties().Where(p => p.PropertyType.IsValueType || p.PropertyType == typeof(string));

            foreach (var property in properties)
            {
                Type propertyType = property.PropertyType;
                if (propertyType.IsGenericType &&
                    propertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(Nullable<>))
                {
                    propertyType = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(propertyType);
                }

                table.Columns.Add(new DataColumn(property.Name, propertyType));
            }

            foreach (var entity in entities)
            {
                table.Rows.Add(
                    properties.Select(property => property.GetValue(entity, null) ?? DBNull.Value).ToArray());
            }

            bulkCopy.BulkCopyTimeout = 0;
            bulkCopy.WriteToServer(table);
        }
    }

    public string GetTableName(Type type)
    {
        var metadata = ((IObjectContextAdapter)this).ObjectContext.MetadataWorkspace;
        var objectItemCollection = ((ObjectItemCollection)metadata.GetItemCollection(DataSpace.OSpace));

        var entityType = metadata
                .GetItems<EntityType>(DataSpace.OSpace)
                .Single(e => objectItemCollection.GetClrType(e) == type);

        var entitySet = metadata
            .GetItems<EntityContainer>(DataSpace.CSpace)
            .Single()
            .EntitySets
            .Single(s => s.ElementType.Name == entityType.Name);

        var mapping = metadata.GetItems<EntityContainerMapping>(DataSpace.CSSpace)
                .Single()
                .EntitySetMappings
                .Single(s => s.EntitySet == entitySet);

        var table = mapping
            .EntityTypeMappings.Single()
            .Fragments.Single()
            .StoreEntitySet;

        return (string)table.MetadataProperties["Table"].Value ?? table.Name;
    }
}

You can use that against any collection that inherit from IEnumerable, like that:

await context.BulkInsertAllAsync(items);

TL;DR I know it is an old post, but I have implemented a solution starting from one of those proposed by extending it and solving some problems of this; moreover I have also read the other solutions presented and compared to these it seems to me to propose a solution that is much more suited to the requests formulated in the original question.

In this solution I extend Slauma's approach which I would say is perfect for the case proposed in the original question, and that is to use Entity Framework and Transaction Scope for an expensive write operation on the db.

In Slauma's solution - which incidentally was a draft and was only used to get an idea of ??the speed of EF with a strategy to implement bulk-insert - there were problems due to:

1. the timeout of the transaction (by default 1 minute extendable via code to max 10 minutes);
2. the duplication of the first block of data with a width equal to the size of the commit used at the end of the transaction (this problem is quite weird and circumvented by means of a workaround).

I also extended the case study presented by Slauma by reporting an example that includes the contextual insertion of several dependent entities.

The performances that I have been able to verify have been of 10K rec/min inserting in the db a block of 200K wide records approximately 1KB each. The speed was constant, there was no degradation in performance and the test took about 20 minutes to run successfully.

The solution in detail

the method that presides over the bulk-insert operation inserted in an example repository class:

abstract class SomeRepository { 

    protected MyDbContext myDbContextRef;

    public void ImportData<TChild, TFather>(List<TChild> entities, TFather entityFather)
            where TChild : class, IEntityChild
            where TFather : class, IEntityFather
    {

        using (var scope = MyDbContext.CreateTransactionScope())
        {

            MyDbContext context = null;
            try
            {
                context = new MyDbContext(myDbContextRef.ConnectionString);

                context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;

                entityFather.BulkInsertResult = false;
                var fileEntity = context.Set<TFather>().Add(entityFather);
                context.SaveChanges();

                int count = 0;

                //avoids an issue with recreating context: EF duplicates the first commit block of data at the end of transaction!!
                context = MyDbContext.AddToContext<TChild>(context, null, 0, 1, true);

                foreach (var entityToInsert in entities)
                {
                    ++count;
                    entityToInsert.EntityFatherRefId = fileEntity.Id;
                    context = MyDbContext.AddToContext<TChild>(context, entityToInsert, count, 100, true);
                }

                entityFather.BulkInsertResult = true;
                context.Set<TFather>().Add(fileEntity);
                context.Entry<TFather>(fileEntity).State = EntityState.Modified;

                context.SaveChanges();
            }
            finally
            {
                if (context != null)
                    context.Dispose();
            }

            scope.Complete();
        }

    }

}

interfaces used for example purposes only:

public interface IEntityChild {

    //some properties ...

    int EntityFatherRefId { get; set; }

}

public interface IEntityFather {

    int Id { get; set; }
    bool BulkInsertResult { get; set; }
}

db context where I implemented the various elements of the solution as static methods:

public class MyDbContext : DbContext
{

    public string ConnectionString { get; set; }


    public MyDbContext(string nameOrConnectionString)
    : base(nameOrConnectionString)
    {
        Database.SetInitializer<MyDbContext>(null);
        ConnectionString = Database.Connection.ConnectionString;
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a TransactionScope raising timeout transaction to 30 minutes
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="_isolationLevel"></param>
    /// <param name="timeout"></param>
    /// <remarks>
    /// It is possible to set isolation-level and timeout to different values. Pay close attention managing these 2 transactions working parameters.
    /// <para>Default TransactionScope values for isolation-level and timeout are the following:</para>
    /// <para>Default isolation-level is "Serializable"</para>
    /// <para>Default timeout ranges between 1 minute (default value if not specified a timeout) to max 10 minute (if not changed by code or updating max-timeout machine.config value)</para>
    /// </remarks>
    public static TransactionScope CreateTransactionScope(IsolationLevel _isolationLevel = IsolationLevel.Serializable, TimeSpan? timeout = null)
    {
        SetTransactionManagerField("_cachedMaxTimeout", true);
        SetTransactionManagerField("_maximumTimeout", timeout ?? TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30));

        var transactionOptions = new TransactionOptions();
        transactionOptions.IsolationLevel = _isolationLevel;
        transactionOptions.Timeout = TransactionManager.MaximumTimeout;
        return new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, transactionOptions);
    }

    private static void SetTransactionManagerField(string fieldName, object value)
    {
        typeof(TransactionManager).GetField(fieldName, BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static).SetValue(null, value);
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a generic entity to a given context allowing commit on large block of data and improving performance to support db bulk-insert operations based on Entity Framework
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
    /// <param name="context"></param>
    /// <param name="entity"></param>
    /// <param name="count"></param>
    /// <param name="commitCount">defines the block of data size</param>
    /// <param name="recreateContext"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static MyDbContext AddToContext<T>(MyDbContext context, T entity, int count, int commitCount, bool recreateContext) where T : class
    {
        if (entity != null)
            context.Set<T>().Add(entity);

        if (count % commitCount == 0)
        {
            context.SaveChanges();
            if (recreateContext)
            {
                var contextConnectionString = context.ConnectionString;
                context.Dispose();
                context = new MyDbContext(contextConnectionString);
                context.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
            }
        }

        return context;
    }
}

As other people have said SqlBulkCopy is the way to do it if you want really good insert performance.

It's a bit cumbersome to implement but there are libraries that can help you with it. There are a few out there but I will shamelesslyplug my own library this time: https://github.com/MikaelEliasson/EntityFramework.Utilities#batch-insert-entities

The only code you would need is:

 using (var db = new YourDbContext())
 {
     EFBatchOperation.For(db, db.BlogPosts).InsertAll(list);
 }

So how much faster is it? Very hard to say because it depends on so many factors, computer performance, network, object size etc etc. The performance tests I've made suggests 25k entities can be inserted at around 10s the standard way on localhost IF you optimize your EF configuration like mentioned in the other answers. With EFUtilities that takes about 300ms. Even more interesting is that I have saved around 3 millions entities in under 15 seconds using this method, averaging around 200k entities per second.

The one problem is ofcourse if you need to insert releated data. This can be done efficently into sql server using the method above but it requires you to have an Id generation strategy that let you generate id's in the app-code for the parent so you can set the foreign keys. This can be done using GUIDs or something like HiLo id generation.

Use stored procedure that takes input data in form of xml to insert data.

From your c# code pass insert data as xml.

e.g in c#, syntax would be like this:

object id_application = db.ExecuteScalar("procSaveApplication", xml)

I've investigated Slauma's answer (which is awesome, thanks for the idea man), and I've reduced batch size until I've hit optimal speed. Looking at the Slauma's results:

• commitCount = 1, recreateContext = true: more than 10 minutes
• commitCount = 10, recreateContext = true: 241 sec
• commitCount = 100, recreateContext = true: 164 sec
• commitCount = 1000, recreateContext = true: 191 sec

It is visible that there is speed increase when moving from 1 to 10, and from 10 to 100, but from 100 to 1000 inserting speed is falling down again.

So I've focused on what's happening when you reduce batch size to value somewhere in between 10 and 100, and here are my results (I'm using different row contents, so my times are of different value):

Quantity    | Batch size    | Interval
1000    1   3
10000   1   34
100000  1   368

1000    5   1
10000   5   12
100000  5   133

1000    10  1
10000   10  11
100000  10  101

1000    20  1
10000   20  9
100000  20  92

1000    27  0
10000   27  9
100000  27  92

1000    30  0
10000   30  9
100000  30  92

1000    35  1
10000   35  9
100000  35  94

1000    50  1
10000   50  10
100000  50  106

1000    100 1
10000   100 14
100000  100 141

Based on my results, actual optimum is around value of 30 for batch size. It's less than both 10 and 100. Problem is, I have no idea why is 30 optimal, nor could have I found any logical explanation for it.

as it was never mentioned here I want to recomment EFCore.BulkExtensions here

context.BulkInsert(entitiesList);                 context.BulkInsertAsync(entitiesList);
context.BulkUpdate(entitiesList);                 context.BulkUpdateAsync(entitiesList);
context.BulkDelete(entitiesList);                 context.BulkDeleteAsync(entitiesList);
context.BulkInsertOrUpdate(entitiesList);         context.BulkInsertOrUpdateAsync(entitiesList);         // Upsert
context.BulkInsertOrUpdateOrDelete(entitiesList); context.BulkInsertOrUpdateOrDeleteAsync(entitiesList); // Sync
context.BulkRead(entitiesList);                   context.BulkReadAsync(entitiesList);

You should look at using the System.Data.SqlClient.SqlBulkCopy for this. Here's the documentation, and of course there are plenty of tutorials online.

Sorry, I know you were looking for a simple answer to get EF to do what you want, but bulk operations are not really what ORMs are meant for.

[2019 Update] EF Core 3.1

Following what have been said above, disabling AutoDetectChangesEnabled in EF Core worked perfectly: the insertion time was divided by 100 (from many minutes to a few seconds, 10k records with cross tables relationships)

The updated code is :

context.ChangeTracker.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
foreach (IRecord record in records) {
    //Add records to your database        
}
context.ChangeTracker.DetectChanges();
context.SaveChanges();
context.ChangeTracker.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = true; //do not forget to re-enable

Use SqlBulkCopy:

void BulkInsert(GpsReceiverTrack[] gpsReceiverTracks)
{
    if (gpsReceiverTracks == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(gpsReceiverTracks));
    }

    DataTable dataTable = new DataTable("GpsReceiverTracks");
    dataTable.Columns.Add("ID", typeof(int));
    dataTable.Columns.Add("DownloadedTrackID", typeof(int));
    dataTable.Columns.Add("Time", typeof(TimeSpan));
    dataTable.Columns.Add("Latitude", typeof(double));
    dataTable.Columns.Add("Longitude", typeof(double));
    dataTable.Columns.Add("Altitude", typeof(double));

    for (int i = 0; i < gpsReceiverTracks.Length; i++)
    {
        dataTable.Rows.Add
        (
            new object[]
            {
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].ID,
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].DownloadedTrackID,
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].Time,
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].Latitude,
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].Longitude,
                    gpsReceiverTracks[i].Altitude
            }
        );
    }

    string connectionString = (new TeamTrackerEntities()).Database.Connection.ConnectionString;
    using (var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        using (var transaction = connection.BeginTransaction())
        {
            using (var sqlBulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(connection, SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock, transaction))
            {
                sqlBulkCopy.DestinationTableName = dataTable.TableName;
                foreach (DataColumn column in dataTable.Columns)
                {
                    sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add(column.ColumnName, column.ColumnName);
                }

                sqlBulkCopy.WriteToServer(dataTable);
            }
            transaction.Commit();
        }
    }

    return;
}

Have you ever tried to insert through a background worker or task?

In my case, im inserting 7760 registers, distributed in 182 different tables with foreign key relationships ( by NavigationProperties).

Without the task, it took 2 minutes and a half. Within a Task ( Task.Factory.StartNew(...) ), it took 15 seconds.

Im only doing the SaveChanges() after adding all the entities to the context. (to ensure data integrity)

Use this technique to increase the speed of inserting records in Entity Framework. Here I use a simple stored procedure to insert the records. And to execute this stored procedure I use .FromSql() method of Entity Framework which executes Raw SQL.

The stored procedure code:

CREATE PROCEDURE TestProc
@FirstParam VARCHAR(50),
@SecondParam VARCHAR(50)

AS
  Insert into SomeTable(Name, Address) values(@FirstParam, @SecondParam) 
GO

Next, loop through all your 4000 records and add the Entity Framework code which executes the stored

procedure onces every 100th loop.

For this I create a string query to execute this procedure, keep on appending to it every sets of record.

Then check it the loop is running in the multiples of 100 and in that case execute it using .FromSql().

So for 4000 records I only have to execute the procedure for only 4000/100 = 40 times.

Check the below code:

string execQuery = "";
var context = new MyContext();
for (int i = 0; i < 4000; i++)
{
    execQuery += "EXEC TestProc @FirstParam = 'First'" + i + "'', @SecondParam = 'Second'" + i + "''";

    if (i % 100 == 0)
    {
        context.Student.FromSql(execQuery);
        execQuery = "";
    }
}