← recall

LSM tree term

log-structured merge tree — append-only DB index

Write to in-memory memtable, flush sorted segments to disk, periodically compact. Optimized for write-heavy workloads. Used by RocksDB, Cassandra, ScyllaDB, ClickHouse.

aliases: LSM, log-structured merge

topics: databases, internals, data-structures

references:

• DDIA Ch. 3 — LSM-Trees
• RocksDB wiki — LSM tree