samdeepthink

Aug 23, 2026 · Databases

Is Splitting Data Across Machines Distributed? Understand Sharding vs Distributed Systems

The article explains that merely placing data on multiple machines constitutes sharding—a way to split data for capacity—but true distributed systems require coordinated nodes that communicate, replicate, and handle failures, illustrated with an e‑commerce warehouse analogy and guidance on choosing between sharding and distributed databases.