How Databases Guarantee Durability (Even After Crashes)
This article was originally published at AlgoMaster Newsletter
One of the things that make databases truly powerful is their ability to protect your data even in the face of unexpected failures.
Whether the database server crashes, restarts, or there’s a sudden power outage, you can trust that your committed data won’t simply disappear.
This promise is known as Durability — one of the four essential ACID properties of databases.
But, what does it actually take to make a database durable?
In this article, we'll explore the key techniques databases use to ensure durability, including:
- Write-Ahead Logging (WAL)
- Checkpointing
- Replication