Unaligned checkpointing reduces checkpoint duration under backpressure by skipping alignment, but it has trade-offs:

• Higher I/O and storage overhead, longer recovery times due to larger checkpoint sizes,
• Potential duplicate records in operators with multiple input streams.

While it maintains exactly-once semantics for state, duplicates in outputs require downstream handling. Use it when backpressure is severe and latency is critical, but avoid it if resource constraints or strict output consistency are priorities.