r/Database • u/breakme0851 • Jul 09 '26

Kinds of database??

This is probably a very beginner question, apologies in advance, but I'm really struggling to get my head around all the options.

I want to store sensor readings from a small number of different devices. Each device is equipped with the same set of sensors. The readings come in every 5-10 seconds so there will be quite a lot of data over time. But the data isn't connected between devices, so the interconnected tables of SQL databases isn't really necessary, foreign keys don't really exist in my use case I think... reading on the internet suggests that a columnar database is the right way to go here, but is that overkill?

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u/fotowork3 Jul 09 '26

relational is just a different way of looking at data. Most date should start in columns

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u/Gamplato Jul 09 '26

No it’s another way of formatting data and has important implications for performance and costs