Distributed Data Storage

Key-based sharding is better, as compared to the other two strategies, when there is a need to maintain data in a distributed manner. It allows for the algorithmic distribution of data. In range-based or directory-based sharding, a mapping needs to be maintained for the shards. In directory-based sharding, there is a heavy reliance on the lookup table. If it gets corrupted, directory-based sharding will have issues.