Mike Chen's Internet Architecture

Aug 20, 2025 · Backend Development

How Kafka Achieves High‑Performance Storage: Log Segments, Indexes, and Retention

This article explains Kafka's storage architecture, including its partition‑based log files, sequential append writes, log segment management, index files, and configurable time‑ and size‑based retention policies that together enable ultra‑high write throughput while controlling disk usage.