[1][2][3][4][5] As in all hashing schemes, spiral hashing stores records in a varying number of buckets, using a record key for addressing.
In an expanding Linear hashing file, buckets are split in a predefined order.
This results in adding a new bucket at the end of the file.
While this allows gradual reorganization of the file, the expected number of records in the newly created bucket and the bucket from what it splits falls to half the previous number.
Several attempts were made to alleviate this sudden drop in space utilization.
The lower-numbered (left) buckets have a higher expected number of records.
[6] [7][8] Spiral hashing requires a uniform hash function of the keys of the records into the unit interval
Larson [9] conducted experiments that showed that Linear hashing still had superior performance over Spiral Hashing.