Columnar Storage

Learn about TileDB’s underlying storage and how it relates to row-based and column-based systems.

Data orientation is a concept in tabular data as it relates to how records are stored both in memory and on-disk. Data orientation traditionally is comprised of two categories: row-oriented and column-oriented. The fundamental difference can be summarized in one question: are individual records stored as one row, or are records groups and stored per-field (column)? Traditional SQL databases that focus on transactions (OLTP), such as PostgreSQL or MySQL, typically store the records as rows. Analytical systems (OLAP) typically store the records in a columnar format.

TileDB stores its data in a columnar format. This gives TileDB fast access to a subset of fields and allows it to achieve a high level of compression.