ColumnFamilies can optionally keep deleted cells. That means deleted cells can still be retrieved with Get or Scan operations, as long these operations have a time range specified that ends before the timestamp of any delete that would affect the cells. This allows for point in time queries even in the presence of deletes.

Deleted cells are still subject to TTL and there will never be more than "maximum number of versions" deleted cells. A new "raw" scan options returns all deleted rows and the delete markers.

See HColumnDescriptor for more information.