What is the difference between permanent tables and transient tables in Snowflake?
💡 Model Answer
Permanent tables are the default table type in Snowflake. They retain data for 90 days and are protected by a 7‑day fail‑safe period that allows recovery after accidental drops or data loss. Because of this protection, permanent tables incur storage costs for both the data and the fail‑safe retention.
Transient tables, on the other hand, do not have a fail‑safe period. Their data is retained for only 7 days and is not recoverable after the retention window expires. This makes them cheaper to store and ideal for staging, temporary, or intermediate data that can be regenerated. Transient tables also support time‑travel up to 7 days, whereas permanent tables support up to 90 days.
Use permanent tables when you need long‑term durability, auditability, or regulatory compliance. Use transient tables when you want lower storage costs for data that can be recreated, such as intermediate results in ETL pipelines or temporary analytics tables.
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