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What Is the Difference Between Row Store and Column Store in SQL Server?

Senior MS SQL
Quick Answer Row store organizes data by rows รขโ‚ฌโ€ all columns for a row are stored together. Good for OLTP (point lookups, row modifications). Column store organizes data by column รขโ‚ฌโ€ ideal for analytics where queries read a few columns across millions of rows. Column store also compresses heavily and enables batch-mode processing.

Answer

Row store: row-by-row storage; best for OLTP.

Column store: column-by-column storage; best for analytics, high compression, parallel execution.

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