How compression works
- CrateDB’s compression is native, automatic, and type-aware. Each column is stored and compressed independently within Lucene segments, using the optimal encoding strategy for its data type.
- Columnar storage efficiency: Each column is stored contiguously, enabling high compression ratios and minimal disk I/O.
- Data-type–specific encoding: Numeric, text, and time series data are compressed differently to maximize efficiency.
- Dictionary and delta encoding: Repeated or incremental values are stored using compact representations.
- Automatic segment merging: CrateDB optimizes compression continuously as segments are merged in the background.
- No manual tuning required: Compression happens transparently, with no configuration, trade-offs, or impact on query speed.
Why this matters
- Business continuity: Recover quickly from failures, corruption or human error, minimizing downtime and data loss.
- Cost-efficient storage: Incremental snapshots reduce the volume of data requiring long-term retention.
- Data retention & compliance: Back up historical data in line with regulatory requirements while managing hot vs. cold data layers.
- Operational flexibility: Choose where snapshots live (on-prem, cloud, hybrid) and how you restore (whole cluster, table, partition) to match your recovery objectives.
- Scalable with your data: As CrateDB scales horizontally, the snapshot mechanism lets you scale backup and restore operations as well.
Benefits
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Reduced storage footprint: Compress data automatically, cutting down storage costs for time series, logs, IoT, and sensor workloads.
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Faster I/O and query performance: With less data to read from disk, queries complete faster — improving both latency and throughput.
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Sustainable scalability: Store more data within the same infrastructure footprint, supporting long-term data retention and AI use cases.
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Edge and hybrid readiness: Smaller storage requirements make CrateDB ideal for edge deployments, where hardware capacity is often limited.
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Works seamlessly with replication and indexing: Compression does not affect durability, indexing, or high availability, you get full data protection and full speed.
Why it matters
CrateDB’s built-in compression turns high-volume analytics into a cost-effective operation. You can retain months or years of operational, IoT, or sensor data in real time, without the typical storage explosion that plagues traditional databases.
Whether deployed on-prem, in the cloud, or at the edge, compression helps you:
- Optimize infrastructure spend.
- Accelerate analytical queries.
- Simplify long-term data management.
