Hi Ryan! I previous versions of HBase when dealing with querying versions they were stored in a TreeMap which added complexity and made the query somewhat slower. With 0.20 data returned to the client is just an array of KeyValues which is the new storage format. When it comes down to splits, regions are split by rows, so it doesn't realy matter if you have many qualifiers or versions in that case. When it comes to compactions there should be no difference either compared to qualifiers.
If we wouldn't use timestamp as the major key for versions what do you have in mind? You can set your own timestamp clientside if you which, but I must warn you that this might give you unexpected results if you don't fully understand how to use this feature. Regards Erik
