Sharding and partitioning are two of the most commonly confused concepts in system design.

At first glance, they may seem similar, and people often use them interchangeably. But they are not the same.

Both are techniques to divide and scale large databases ; however, they differ in how the data is divided.

Simply put , partitioning typically means breaking down database tables within a single server while sharding is about distributing data across multiple servers .

In this article, we’ll clear up the confusion between the two. You’ll learn:

• What each term really means
• How they work under the hood
• Real-world examples with SQL and code

1. What is Partitioning?

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