# Planning a Storage Model

# Planning a Storage Model

  
openGauss supports hybrid row storage and column storage. Each storage model applies to specific scenarios. Select an appropriate model when creating a table. Generally, openGauss is used for transactional processing databases. By default, row storage is used. Column storage is used only when complex queries in large data volume are performed.

Row-store stores tables to disk partitions by row, and column-store stores tables to disk partitions by column. By default, a row-store table is created. For details about differences between row storage and column storage, see Figure 1.

Figure 1 Differences between row storage and column storage

[![Image description](https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--I4XCWNZl--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/w9a9x8zmg9543ofyd792.png align="left")](https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--I4XCWNZl--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/w9a9x8zmg9543ofyd792.png)

  
In the preceding figure, the upper left part is a row-store table, and the upper right part shows how the row-store table is stored on a disk; the lower left part is a column-store table, and the lower right part shows how the column-store table is stored on a disk.

Both storage models have benefits and drawbacks.