Database sharding and partitioning: the scaling move an interviewer makes you justify Every system design answer eventually hits the same wall: one database is not enough. The moment your design has to hold more data or absorb more writes than a single machine can, database sharding stops being a buzzword and becomes the thing you have to reason about out loud. And sharding and partitioning are where an interviewer separates the candidates who scale a database by reflex — "we'll just sha...