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| Nov 27, 2024 | » | Consistent Hashing
6 min; updated Jun 6, 2026
The term “consistent hashing” makes me think of hashing without randomization. Why isn’t every hash consistent by definition? For example, a map implementation would need consistent hashing lest it’s inaccurate when searching for stored values. Or is consistent hashing a tradeoff between collision-resistance and speed? Web CachingWeb caching was the original motivation for consistent hashing. With a web cache, if a browser requests a URL that is not in the cache, the page is downloaded from the server, and the result is sent to both the browser and the cache. On a second request, the page is served from the cache without contacting the server. ... |