Understanding & Viewing Fail-safe¶
Separate and distinct from Time Travel, Fail-safe ensures historical data is protected in the event of a system failure or other event (e.g. a security breach).
What is Fail-safe?¶
Fail-safe provides a (non-configurable) 7-day period during which historical data may be recoverable by Snowflake. This period starts immediately after the Time Travel retention period ends. Note, however, that a long-running Time Travel query will delay moving any data and objects (tables, schemas, and databases) in the account into Fail-safe, until the query completes.
Attention
Fail-safe is a data recovery service that is provided on a best effort basis and is intended only for use when all other recovery options have been attempted.
Fail-safe is not provided as a means for accessing historical data after the Time Travel retention period has ended. It is for use only by Snowflake to recover data that may have been lost or damaged due to extreme operational failures.
Data recovery through Fail-safe may take from several hours to several days to complete.
Viewing Fail-safe Storage for Your Account¶
In the web interface, account administrators can view the total data storage for their account, including historical data in Fail-safe. The page also provides a filter for viewing only Fail-safe storage:
