Though all three, CAST, CONVERT, and PARSE are used to convert one data type into another in SQL Server, there are some subtle differences between them. The CAST method accepts just two parameters, expression, and target type, but CONVERT() also takes a third parameter representing the format of conversion, which is supported for some conversions, like between character strings and date-time values. For example, CONVERT(DATE, '2/7/2015', 101) converts the character string '2/7/2015' to DATE using DATE format 101, representing United States standard.
