Sandbox type selection by business requirement
Key Takeaway
Choose a sandbox type by the job: Developer or Developer Pro to build often, Partial Copy to test with a sample of production data, and Full to test with all of it. Only Full sandboxes support performance testing, load testing, and staging.
A sandbox is a copy of your production org in a separate, completely isolated environment. Because it is isolated, building, testing, and training there cannot change production. Salesforce offers four sandbox types: Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full. They differ in what they copy, how much storage they have, and how often you can refresh them. You choose a type by matching those three traits to the job.
How the four sandbox types differ
| Sandbox type | What it copies | Data storage | File storage | Refresh interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Metadata only, not records | 200 MB (400 MB with a storage upgrade) | 200 MB | 1 day |
| Developer Pro | Metadata only, not records | 1 GB (2 GB with a storage upgrade) | 1 GB | 1 day |
| Partial Copy | Metadata plus a sample of production data | 5 GB | Same as your production org | 5 days |
| Full | All data and all metadata | Same as your production org | Same as your production org | 29 days |
Developer and Developer Pro sandboxes contain no production data, so to test with records there, you need to seed your own test data. A Full sandbox is a replica of production, and its data includes object records and attachments.
A sandbox does not send an email when it reaches its storage limit, but after that you cannot save new data in it. Metadata types do not count against sandbox storage.