AI engineering glossary · Data engineering
What is columnar storage?
Columnar storage: Laying out a table so all values of one column are stored together instead of keeping each row's fields together. Similar values compress well and queries read only the needed columns, ideal for analytics but costly for frequent single-row updates.
Columnar storage: an example
To average one price column across 100 million rows, the engine reads that column alone rather than every field of every row.
Related terms
More Data engineering terms
Where you learn it
Columnar storage is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.