Definition

Hash partitioning assigns data to shards by hashing a key and using the hash result to pick a partition.

Core concept

If data is uniformly hashed, it distributes data evenly. Good for equality-based queries (exact key lookup).

Use cases

Many NoSQL (Cassandra) use consistent hashing.

Trade-offs

Range queries on the key aren’t contiguous, so less efficient. Adding nodes requires rehashing or consistent hashing.

References

Hash partitioning common in distributed cache design.