SnowPro Core (COF-C03) · Free practice question 1 of 15
Micro-partition immutability
Snowflake's micro-partitions are foundational to its query performance and storage model. Which statement about micro-partitions is correct?
- A.Their size is user-configurable between 16 MB and 256 MB at table creation time.
- B.They are immutable once created — DML operations produce new micro-partitions and mark old ones for the Fail-Safe lifecycle.
- C.A single micro-partition can span multiple tables to enable efficient cross-table scans.
- D.They are held in the compute layer rather than the storage layer for performance.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B. They are immutable once created — DML operations produce new micro-partitions and mark old ones for the Fail-Safe lifecycle.
Why: Micro-partitions are immutable after creation; updates and deletes produce new micro-partitions and the originals enter Time Travel + Fail-Safe before cleanup. Size is automatically managed by Snowflake (each holds roughly 50–500 MB of uncompressed data, stored compressed), they belong to a single table, and they live in the cloud storage layer.
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