HBase Administration Cookbook

Managing a region split

Usually an HBase table starts with a single region. However, as data keeps growing and the region reaches its configured maximum size, it is automatically split into two halves, so that they can handle more data. The following diagram shows an HBase region splitting:

This is the default behavior of HBase region splitting. This mechanism works well for many cases, however there are situations wherein it encounters problems, such as the split/compaction storms issue.

With a roughly uniform data distribution and growth, eventually all the regions in the table will need to be split at the same time. Immediately following a split, ...