Kafka: replication.factor and the loss of a broker

A replication factor of one means any broker restart takes its partitions offline.

Code

kafka-topics.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --create --topic orders --partitions 6 --replication-factor 3

Output

RF=1: one broker down = data unavailable, and gone if the disk fails
RF=3: survives two broker failures, at 3x the storage

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Published 2026-08-11