What is RocksDB? Learn how it works and how it’s used at a global scale

RocksDB is one of the most widely used storage systems, yet almost nobody configures it directly. It sits underneath Kafka, MySQL via MyRocks, TiDB, YugabyteDB, Ceph, and the ledger of the overwhelming majority of Solana validators.

For something this load-bearing, its coverage is surprisingly thin.

The official documentation makes for excellent reference material, but a poor first introduction, and most other explainers assume prior knowledge on the reader’s part, such as what a LSM tree is.

This is the first article in a series that explores the inner workings of RocksDB, starting with the obvious question: What is Rocks DB?

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