Cloud cost
Time Travel & Fail-safe
Two Snowflake features that keep changed or deleted data recoverable, and keep billing storage for it. Time Travel covers a configurable window. Fail-safe covers a fixed 7 days after that.
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Definition
Deleting a row or dropping a table does not free its storage at once. Time Travel keeps the earlier state recoverable for a retention window that you configure. The window is fixed at 1 day on Standard Edition and goes up to 90 days on Enterprise. When it ends, Fail-safe holds the data for a further 7 days on permanent tables. You cannot configure Fail-safe.
Both windows bill storage the whole time they are active. A table with a lot of daily churn can carry far more retained-version storage than its live row count suggests. A table truncated and reloaded every night is one example.
Where it shows up
You set Time Travel's retention window per table or per account in Snowflake's configuration. It runs from a fixed one day on Standard Edition up to 90 days on Enterprise Edition. Fail-safe follows on its own when that window ends. It lasts a further seven days on permanent tables. You cannot change it.
What makes it expensive
A table that is truncated and reloaded every night carries far more storage than its live row count implies. Each day's discarded version stays billable through the Time Travel window and the Fail-safe week behind it. A table that never grows can still have storage that does. The row count you would check first says nothing about it.
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