Cheap storage makes SCD Type 2 look obsolete, says a Meta-style data engineer
Zachly · x · 2026-07-27
The case against SCD Type 2 in 2026
The post argues that slowly changing dimensions are no longer worth their engineering overhead in an era of very cheap storage.
- SCD Type 2 saves only a small amount of storage/compute, but adds significant complexity.
- With storage like S3 Glacier Flexible at about $44 per TB per year, the economics are weak.
- The author estimates that two weeks of data engineering time can cost around $10,000, making the payback period absurdly long if SCD Type 2 only saves 1 TB.
- The suggested alternative is the Meta-style daily snapshot approach, which is described as less brittle and easier to evolve.
The linked long article is presented as a deeper explanation of this modern data-lake pattern, and the image shows a warehouse design where analysts query only from a curated summary layer.
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