Data Protection and Data Sharing
Time Travel, Fail-safe, cloning
Time Travel lets you query or restore historical data: SELECT ... AT(OFFSET => -3600) or BEFORE(STATEMENT => ...), plus UNDROP TABLE/SCHEMA/DATABASE. Retention is 0–1 day on Standard and up to 90 days on Enterprise, configurable per table with DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS. Fail-safe is a fixed, non-configurable 7 days of recovery data that only Snowflake Support can access - it is not queryable and is not a backup you can restore yourself.
Zero-copy cloning (CREATE TABLE t2 CLONE t1) copies metadata only; storage is shared until either table's micro-partitions change. Clones are instant and cheap, which is why they underpin dev/test and fast recovery.
Sharing
Secure data sharing exposes database objects to another account through a share without copying data; the consumer creates a database from the share and queries it with their own warehouse. Providers can share with reader accounts for consumers who are not Snowflake customers. Secure views, masking policies, and row access policies protect data inside shares; replication extends objects and shares to other regions for business continuity. Snowflake Data Clean Rooms enable privacy-preserving collaboration.
Traps
- Fail-safe cannot be queried, shortened, or extended, and is not a user-accessible backup.
- Cloning does not duplicate data at clone time; storage grows only as the copies diverge.
- Dropping a table does not immediately free storage while Time Travel is active.
- A share consumer cannot see the underlying table definition behind a secure view.
Rule of thumb
Accidental DELETE/DROP inside retention → Time Travel or UNDROP. Beyond retention → Snowflake Support and Fail-safe. Need a copy for testing → CLONE, never CREATE TABLE AS SELECT.