Techniques for non-power-of-two partitioning of a data set as well as generation and selection of partition schemes for the data set. In an embodiment, one or more iterations of a partition scheme is for a non-power-of-two number of partitions. Extended hash partitioning may be used to partition a data set into a non-power-of-two number of partitions by determining the partition identifier of each tuple of the data set using the extended hash partitioning algorithm. In an embodiment, multiple partition schemes are generated for multiple data sets, based on properties of the data sets and/or availability of computing resources for the partition operation or the subsequent operation to the partition operation. The generated partition schemes may use non-power-of-two partitioning for one or more iterations of a generated partition scheme. The most optimal partition scheme may be selected from the generated partition schemes based on optimization policies.