As per the OP's response if the data isn't well distributed along the partitioned column you will end up having some very large partitions while others will be very small. Writing into a single large partition can lead Kudu to fail.   If your partitioned column is skewed aim for redesigning your table partitioning. Final note: As per Kudu's documentation (Apache Kudu - Apache Kudu Schema Design) Typically the primary key columns are used as the columns to hash, but as with range partitioning, any subset of the primary key columns can be used.   ... View more