Hints gc_grace and expirations
Hint and gcgrace(you can set in table level) are two different parameters in Cassandra. irrespective of gcgrace seconds a hint will be stored in system.hints table for the >max_hint_window_in_ms&lt; period mentioned in cassandra.yaml and will be removed after that. max_hint_window_in_ms is your SLA to bring the down node back online and run repair or the deleted data will comeback as a zombie.