When should I choose LSM-trees over B-trees?
Use LSM-trees for write-heavy workloads with high throughput targets (millions of writes/sec) where occasional read latency spikes are acceptable. Use B-trees for balanced or read-heavy workloads where consistent query latency matters more than write throughput, like OLTP systems.
Answered in
LSM-Trees vs B-Trees: Why Cassandra Chose Sequential WritesB-trees seek random disk positions. LSM-trees buffer in memory and flush sequentially, converting random I/O into sequential writes for millions of ops/sec.
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