Status: IN
Each unavailable preferred replica gets at most one hint stored on one non-preferred node per write operation, preventing hint explosion.
Source: entries/2026/05/29/hinted-handoff-hinted_handoff.md
for target_nid in unavailable_preferred:
for nid in non_preferred:
if node.is_available():
node.store_hint(hint)
break # one hint node per target