{"ID":2871965,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10714","arxiv_id":"2509.10714","title":"Dynamic read \u0026 write optimization with TurtleKV","abstract":"High read and write performance is important for generic key-value stores, which are foundational to modern applications and databases. Yet, achieving high performance for mixed and dynamic workloads is challenging due to fundamental trade-offs between memory use and I/O for retrieval and updates. Past work emphasizes the trade-off between read- and write-optimization as expressed through primary data structure, in combination with read-memory trade-off mechanisms like caching and filtering. This raises re-tuning costs as optimal trade-off targets change, due to restructuring of stored data. We show that write-memory trade-off mechanisms are under-developed in current designs, and propose a new approach to dynamic key-value store optimization using a novel read-/write-balanced on-disk structure, the TurtleTree, and flexible read-memory \u0026 write-memory tuning knobs. We describe how the design of TurtleKV, our prototype, avoids in-memory bottlenecks to achieve high performance across a wide range of tuning parameters. When evaluated using YCSB, TurtleKV matches state-of-the-art SplinterDB for inserts, and is 5x/12x faster than RockDB/WiredTiger. In mixed workloads, TurtleKV is 16-25% faster than SplinterDB, \u003e4x RocksDB, and 3-6x WiredTiger. TurtleKV is 2-9x faster than the others for point-query workloads, and has the best scan performance of the write-optimized systems tested.","short_abstract":"High read and write performance is important for generic key-value stores, which are foundational to modern applications and databases. Yet, achieving high performance for mixed and dynamic workloads is challenging due to fundamental trade-offs between memory use and I/O for retrieval and updates. Past work emphasizes...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10714","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.10714v3","authors":"[\"Tony Astolfi\",\"Vidya Silai\",\"Darby Huye\",\"Lan Liu\",\"Raja R. Sambasivan\",\"Johes Bater\"]","published":"2025-09-12T22:08:40Z","proceeding":"cs.DB","tasks":"[\"cs.DB\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}