Implementations for I/O efficient synchronization on a graph database are provided. One example includes a computing system comprising: processing circuitry and memory storing instructions that, during execution, causes the processing circuitry to: implement the graph database using at least: a read-write node and a read-only node operating in cache memory; and a shared storage for data persistence, wherein the shared storage stores a mapping table of the graph database; receive an update query; update the read-write node based on the update query; write, using the read-write node, a set of logs corresponding to the update query to a write-ahead log journal in the shared storage; and retrieve, using the read-only node, the set of logs from the write-ahead log journal.