ScyllaDB’s Compaction Strategies Series: Write Amplification in Leveled Compaction

The blog post delves into the complexities of the Leveled Compaction Strategy (LCS) in ScyllaDB and Apache Cassandra, presenting it as a solution to the space amplification issue inherent in the Size-Tiered Compaction Strategy (STCS) but highlighting its introduction of a new challenge: write amplification. LCS, which organizes data into levels with exponentially increasing sizes, effectively reduces space amplification by minimizing temporary disk space usage and eliminating duplicate data storage. However, it exacerbates write amplification, leading to significantly higher disk write operations, which can severely impact performance in write-heavy or mixed read-write workloads. The post concludes by hinting at the next part of the series, which will explore the Hybrid Compaction Strategy, aiming to combine the benefits of LCS and STCS while mitigating their respective drawbacks.