Nonpartitioned

Nonpartitioned is a term used to describe data structures or storage objects that are not divided into partitions. In the context of databases, a nonpartitioned table or index exists as a single object and does not rely on a partitioning scheme to divide its data. Partitioning typically involves distributing rows into multiple partitions based on a partition key, range, or hash function, with the intent of improving performance, manageability, or availability.

Compared with partitioned tables, nonpartitioned objects are simpler to create and maintain, and they can be easier to back up, restore, and replicate because there is no partition metadata to manage. However, they may offer less scalability and parallelism for very large datasets, and certain optimizations such as partition pruning cannot be applied.

Usage considerations include that many database systems create nonpartitioned tables by default; partitioning must be explicitly configured. For example, PostgreSQL tables are nonpartitioned unless defined with a PARTITION BY clause. In other systems, partitioned objects require a partition scheme and function; if omitted, the object remains nonpartitioned.

See also: Partitioning, Partitioned table, Partition pruning, Sharding, Distributed database.