Be able to select the correct table type for a workload and calculate when data becomes permanently unrecoverable by combining Time Travel retention with Fail-safe. The critical skill is tracking whether retention comes from the table, schema, or account default, and how UNDROP restores it.
Start practicing
Storage and Data Protection — choose a session length
Free · No account required
Domain overview
This domain covers Snowflake storage architecture and data protection: permanent, transient, and temporary tables, Time Travel retention, Fail-safe, UNDROP, cloning, and replication. Questions test how DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS behaves at account, schema, and table level, and how retention interacts with table type and edition.
Exam objectives
Choosing transient or temporary tables for intermediate ETL data versus permanent tables
Computing total recoverability windows by combining Time Travel retention with Fail-safe periods
Predicting how schema-level DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS changes apply to existing permanent tables
Determining retention settings and behavior after UNDROP, including inheritance from schema or account defaults
Assuming a schema parameter change retroactively rewrites retention on existing tables, when inheritance and explicit table-level overrides behave differently.
Forgetting that Fail-safe adds a fixed non-configurable period after Time Travel ends, so total unrecoverable time exceeds the retention setting.
Treating transient and temporary tables as having the same Time Travel and Fail-safe coverage as permanent tables.
Click any question to see the full explanation and answer options, or start a focused practice session above.
Refer to the exhibit. Why can the user not change the retention time of the table 'SENSITIVE_DATA' to 30 days?
2Which of the following describes the primary purpose of Snowflake's Fail-safe storage?
3Refer to the exhibit. What is the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting for the table after the UNDROP operation?
4Which of the following best describes the storage impact of zero-copy cloning a large table?
5What is the result of increasing the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS from 1 to 5 days on an existing table?
6Which Snowflake edition is required to support a 90-day Time Travel retention period?
7What is the effect of the UNDROP command on a table that has already been recreated with the same name?
8A data engineering team needs to create a set of tables for an ETL process that involves massive intermediate data transformations. These tables should persist across multiple sessions for 24 hours but do not require long-term disaster recovery protection. Which table type should be used to minimize storage costs while meeting these requirements?
9When a large production table is cloned to a development environment using the CLONE keyword, how is the initial storage for the cloned table billed?
10Refer to the exhibit. A data engineer runs SYSTEM$CLUSTERING_INFORMATION on a table. Based on the output, what is the most accurate interpretation of the table's current state?
11A data engineer changes the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS parameter for a schema from 1 to 30. How does this change affect the existing permanent tables within that schema?
12If a permanent table in a Snowflake Enterprise edition account is dropped, and it had a 10-day Time Travel retention period, what is the total duration until the data is permanently unrecoverable by any means?
13Refer to the exhibit. If the output shows TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE', IS_TRANSIENT='YES', and RETENTION_TIME='1', which statement correctly describes the storage behavior if this table is accidentally dropped?
14An account administrator is reviewing storage usage and notices that a table with 1 TB of active data is actually consuming 5 TB of total storage. The table has a clustering key and 90 days of Time Travel. What is the most likely reason for the 4 TB difference?
15A data engineer is managing a Snowflake account where a transient table named STG_ORDERS is created in a schema. The table holds intermediate ETL results. The engineer wants to ensure that if the table is accidentally dropped, it can be recovered within 24 hours without incurring Fail-safe storage costs. What should the engineer do?
16A data engineer is using Snowflake's Time Travel feature to recover a table that was dropped 2 days ago. The table was a permanent table with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 1. The engineer attempts to use UNDROP TABLE but receives an error. What is the most likely reason for the failure?
17A data engineer manages a transient table named STG_EVENTS with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 0 in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. A batch job accidentally truncates the table at 02:00. The engineer attempts to recover the lost rows using Time Travel queries against the table's historical versions but finds no historical data available. Which statement explains why the historical data is unavailable?
18A Snowflake account uses Enterprise Edition. A permanent table FACT_ORDERS with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 14 is dropped at 10:00 on Monday. On Wednesday at 10:00, the engineer runs UNDROP TABLE FACT_ORDERS. Immediately after the UNDROP, what is the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS value for the restored table?
19A data engineer maintains a transient table named RAW_EVENTS in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. The table currently has DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 1. The engineer attempts to run ALTER TABLE RAW_EVENTS SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 14; and the statement fails. What is the reason for the failure?
20A data engineer needs to restore a specific version of a permanent table named FINANCE_LEDGER as it existed 40 hours ago, but the table is currently 2 TB and has DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 1. The engineer wants to recover the historical data without affecting the current table. Which approach correctly recovers the data?
21A data engineer manages a Snowflake account where a transient table named STAGE_EVENTS is loaded hourly. To cut storage costs, the engineer plans to set DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 0 on this transient table. Which outcome will occur?
22A data engineer creates a zero-copy clone of a 5 TB permanent table to provide a development team with a copy of production data. Immediately after the clone is created, how is storage billed for the clone?
23A data engineer creates a table in a Snowflake database that resides on a standard (non-replicated) storage. The engineer wants to confirm that Fail-safe will protect the table after Time Travel expires. Which table type should the engineer use?
24A data engineer runs the following statement on a permanent table in a Snowflake account: ALTER TABLE SALES_ARCHIVE SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 14; The table previously had a retention of 1 day, and the account is on Enterprise Edition. Which statement accurately describes the effect?
25A data engineer accidentally drops a permanent table named CUSTOMER_DIM that had DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 5. Six days after the drop, the engineer runs UNDROP TABLE CUSTOMER_DIM; and it fails. What is the most likely explanation?
26A data engineer is designing a storage strategy for a Snowflake account. The engineer wants to reduce Fail-safe storage costs and must understand which table types are exempt from Fail-safe. (Choose two.)
27A data engineer runs a batch job on a transient table named STG_EVENTS that is loaded from an external stage. The job truncates and reloads the table every night. After a faulty deployment, the engineer needs to restore the table contents from 30 hours ago. The engineer attempts Time Travel but the query returns no historical data. What is the most likely cause?
28A production team uses a permanent table with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 14. After an accidental DELETE, the team successfully runs a Time Travel query to recover the rows. Two days later, the same team needs to recover a different set of rows that were deleted 20 days ago. What will happen when they attempt Time Travel for the 20-day-old deletion?
29A data engineer has a permanent table ORDERS_ARCHIVE with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 30. An analyst accidentally runs DELETE FROM ORDERS_ARCHIVE WHERE order_date < '2022-01-01' and commits the transaction. Twenty minutes later, the engineer wants to recover only the deleted rows without disturbing the current state of the table. Which approach is correct?
30A data engineer is designing a recovery strategy for a critical permanent table FACT_SALES in an Enterprise Edition account. The team wants the ability to restore the table to any point within the last 60 days and also wants protection against a catastrophic failure that corrupts the data. Which statement correctly describes the available recovery windows?
31A company clones a 5 TB permanent table named RAW_CLICKS into a development schema using CREATE TABLE DEV.RAW_CLICKS CLONE PROD.RAW_CLICKS. Immediately after the clone, the development team loads 500 GB of new data into DEV.RAW_CLICKS and also updates 100 GB of existing rows. Which statement correctly describes the storage charges that result?
32A data engineer manages a Snowflake account with a database named PROD_DB. The database contains a schema SALES with a table ORDERS. The engineer wants to clone the entire PROD_DB database to a new database named DEV_DB for testing. The PROD_DB database is large, but the engineer needs the clone to be available immediately. Which statement accurately describes the storage consumption and availability of the cloned database?
33A data engineer is configuring a new permanent table in a Snowflake Standard Edition account. The engineer needs to ensure that the table can be recovered if it is accidentally dropped, but wants to minimize storage costs. The table will be updated frequently. Which DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting should the engineer choose to meet these requirements?
34A data engineer manages a transient table named STG_EVENTS in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. The table has a DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting of 1. The engineer wants Time Travel to retain data for 30 days for this table. What will happen if the engineer executes ALTER TABLE STG_EVENTS SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 30?
35A data engineer is designing a storage strategy for a Snowflake account that uses Enterprise Edition. The engineer needs to ensure that critical tables can be recovered for up to 90 days, while non-critical staging tables should minimize storage costs. Which two statements accurately describe Snowflake Time Travel and Fail-safe behavior for permanent tables? (Choose two.)
36A data engineer has a permanent table ORDERS_FACT in an Enterprise Edition account with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 14. The table was dropped 20 days ago. The engineer now runs UNDROP TABLE ORDERS_FACT. What is the outcome?
37A data engineer maintains a transient table named STG_EVENTS in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. The table has a DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting of 1. The engineer accidentally truncates the table and immediately realizes the mistake. What is the most reliable way to recover the lost rows?
38A data engineer is creating a new table to hold a large volume of raw clickstream events that are loaded continuously and only retained for reporting within the same day. The team wants to minimize storage costs while still allowing recovery of rows modified within the last 24 hours. Which table type best fits these requirements?
39A data engineer needs to retain a point-in-time copy of a large permanent table SALES_HISTORY for regulatory purposes. The table is 5 TB. The engineer runs CREATE TABLE SALES_HISTORY_BACKUP CLONE SALES_HISTORY. What is the initial storage cost impact of this operation?
40A data engineer is managing a Snowflake account with multiple databases. The engineer wants to ensure that critical data can be recovered in the event of accidental deletion or modification. The engineer is considering using Time Travel and Fail-safe. Which TWO statements accurately describe the capabilities and limitations of Fail-safe? (Choose two.)
41A data engineer needs to create a development copy of a 5 TB production table named FACT_SALES for query testing. The team wants the copy to share the same underlying micro-partitions as the source so no additional storage is consumed at creation time. Which command should the engineer use?
42A data engineer is designing a data protection strategy for a set of permanent tables in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. The engineer needs to ensure that accidental data modifications can be reversed and that dropped tables can be restored by the team without opening a support ticket. Which two configuration choices support these goals? (Choose two.)
43A data engineer needs to move a large volume of archived data from an on-premises system into a Snowflake internal stage and then load it into a permanent table. The data must be protected against accidental deletion for at least 30 days. The account is Snowflake Enterprise Edition. Which configuration best meets these requirements?
44A data engineer is reviewing storage costs in a Snowflake account. The engineer notices that a permanent table named CUSTOMER_DIM has a DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS value of 90, but the account is on Standard Edition. The engineer wants to confirm whether this is valid. What is the maximum Time Travel retention period for a permanent table in a Standard Edition account?
45A data engineer is auditing storage consumption in a Snowflake account. A large permanent table named SALES_FACT has DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 60. Over the past month, ETL jobs have performed several full-table UPDATE operations that rewrote most micro-partitions. The engineer notices that the table's Time Travel storage has grown significantly even though the visible row count is unchanged. What is the most likely cause of the increased Time Travel storage?
46A data engineer is managing a Snowflake account with Enterprise Edition. A permanent table named FINANCE_RECORDS has DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 10. The engineer wants to reduce storage costs by lowering the retention period to 1 day. What is the effect of executing ALTER TABLE FINANCE_RECORDS SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 1?
47A data engineer has a permanent table named ORDERS with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS set to 5. The table is dropped accidentally. The engineer executes UNDROP TABLE ORDERS 2 days later, successfully restoring the table. What is the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting for the restored table?
48A data engineer needs to protect a set of permanent tables in a Snowflake Enterprise Edition account. The requirement is to allow querying of historical versions for up to 30 days and to allow recovery of dropped tables within that same window. Which two actions should the engineer take to meet these requirements? (Choose two.)
Be able to select the correct table type for a workload and calculate when data becomes permanently unrecoverable by combining Time Travel retention with Fail-safe. The critical skill is tracking whether retention comes from the table, schema, or account default, and how UNDROP restores it.
The Courseiva DEA-C02 question bank contains 48 questions in the Storage and Data Protection domain. Click any question to see the full explanation and answer breakdown.
Start with a 10-question focused session to identify your baseline accuracy in this domain. Read every explanation — even for questions you answer correctly — to understand the reasoning. Once you score consistently above 80%, move to a 20–30 question session to confirm depth before moving to the next domain.
Yes — the session launcher on this page draws questions exclusively from the Storage and Data Protection domain. Choose 10, 20, 30, or 50 questions for a focused session, or click individual questions to review them one by one.
Save your results, see per-domain analytics, and get readiness scores — free, for every certification.
Sign Up FreeFree forever · Every certification included