# What do you already have to move?

> An existing corpus of Attachments, Files, and ContentVersions turns adoption into a migration project. Record associations survive a standard migration; version history does not.

*Buyer's guide · Question 7*

## What do you already have to *move*?

An existing corpus makes this a migration project, not a configuration task. Know what survives before you start.

For Salesforce admins planning a migration, and whoever owns compliance or audit requirements on file history.

Last verified 21 Aug 2026·Sources: CloudFiles engineering·v1.0 Where this claim comes fromPublished by CloudFiles. What survives a migration is CloudFiles-confirmed by our own engineering, not a third-party document, so ask us to demonstrate it against a copy of your own data before committing.

## Why an existing corpus changes everything
A team with no meaningful existing file corpus is choosing a tool. A team with years of Attachments, Files and ContentVersions is planning a migration, and the two decisions have different risks.

Before evaluating anything, know roughly how many of each you have, and whether version history and record associations on those existing files matter to you, for compliance, audit, or just institutional memory.

## What survives, what doesn't

|  | Standard migration |
|---|---|
| Record associations | Survive |
| Version history | Does not survive |
If version history is a compliance or audit requirement for you, this is a blocking finding to raise before you sign anything, not a footnote to discover afterward.

## What to ask any vendor

- Is there a documented rollback or reconciliation step if a migration run fails partway?
- Can you run a test migration against a sandbox copy of your real data before committing?
- If version history doesn't survive, is there any way to export or archive it separately first?

## What your answer means
**Little or no existing corpus:** migration risk is low. Proceed on the strength of the other questions in this guide.

**Years of files with a real compliance need for history:** get the version-history gap acknowledged in writing, and test a real migration, before you commit to any vendor, including CloudFiles.

## Where this stops
This page settles migration only. What happens at ongoing volume, and what the whole thing costs, are separate questions in [the guide](/salesforce/document-management/guide#questions).

## *Check* my working

Most readers won't need this. If your migration is unusually large or old, say what's in the way.

- Report: written assessment, two to three working days.
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**What happens next**

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Last verified 21 Aug 2026·Reviewed quarterly·v1.0