Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding data retention in Unity Catalog. In the pre–Unity Catalog setup, I believe that even if we dropped an external table, the underlying data files remained intact.

However, in the current best practices for Unity Catalog, external tables are no longer recommended in most case.
https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/best-practices#-managed-and-externa... 

Additionally, I noticed that the documentation for the UNDROP command mentions a 7-day retention period.
https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/sql/language-manual/sql-ref-syntax-ddl-undrop-table 
Previously, we could retain the actual data files permanently, but is that no longer feasible under Unity Catalog?

Any insights or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,