trees and external storage data item is moved into the parent of the node being split data item remains where it is the rightmost two children are disconnected from the node being split and connected to the new node an example of node split is shown in figure another way of describing node split is to say that -node has been transformed into two -nodes to be inserted this node is split abefore insertion moves up bafter insertion stays put new node moves right inserted figure splitting node notice that the effect of the node split is to move data up and to the right it is this rearrangement that keeps the tree balanced here the insertion required only one node splitbut more than one full node may be encountered on the path to the insertion point when this is the casethere will be multiple splits splitting the root when full root is encountered at the beginning of the search for the insertion pointthe resulting split is slightly more complicateda new root is created it becomes the parent of the node being split second new node is created it becomes sibling of the node being split