DEA-C02 Storage and Data Protection Practice Question
A 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?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Fail-safe with Time Travel, assuming Fail-safe can be queried by users for older data.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The Time Travel query will fail because the 20-day-old deletion is beyond the 14-day retention period.
Time Travel availability is determined by the table's DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting. With a 14-day retention, a deletion 20 days in the past is outside the window, so the query cannot return that historical state. A previous successful recovery does not reset or extend the retention period; each recovery must fall within the configured window.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The Time Travel query will succeed because Fail-safe retains data for 7 days after the Time Travel period.
Why it's wrong here
Fail-safe is a 7-day period that begins after the Time Travel retention period ends, but Fail-safe data is not accessible through normal Time Travel queries. Only Snowflake Support can recover Fail-safe data. Therefore, a 20-day-old deletion cannot be recovered by a user-run Time Travel query even though Fail-safe may still hold the data.
- ✗
The Time Travel query will succeed only if the table was cloned before the deletion.
Why it's wrong here
Cloning a table creates an independent table object with its own retention characteristics, but it does not extend Time Travel for the original table. Time Travel on the original table is governed solely by its DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS setting and the age of the changes. A clone is not a prerequisite for Time Travel and does not change the 14-day limit.
- ✓
The Time Travel query will fail because the 20-day-old deletion is beyond the 14-day retention period.
Why this is correct
The table has a 14-day Time Travel retention. A deletion that occurred 20 days ago is outside that window, so historical data for that point is no longer available to Time Travel. The earlier successful recovery does not extend the retention period. The team would need a longer retention setting or an external backup strategy.
- ✗
The Time Travel query will succeed because permanent tables always retain 90 days of history regardless of the configured setting.
Why it's wrong here
Permanent tables can be configured up to 90 days in Enterprise Edition, but the effective retention is the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS value set on the table. It is not automatically 90 days. In this scenario the setting is 14 days, so history beyond 14 days is not available for Time Travel, making the 20-day-old recovery impossible.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Snowflake exam blueprint
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