Types of Data - structured / unstructured

Structured Data - this is data which has been taken from a format to receive specific information. Examples of structured data would be information taken from an application form or a table which someone has made. The information which is wanted has been defined beforehand e.g. someone who wrote the application form would be looking for specific pieces of information from people.

An advantage of structured data is that it is fast and easy to take information from as it is laid out in a structured manner. There is no unnecessary information in the way, making it easier for the information to be analysed by a computer algorithm. A disadvantage of unstructured data is that it can be limited in what data is there.

Unstructured Data - this is data which has no format and so it can have a wide variety of data. Examples would be information taken from a video or a Facebook Post. The data may be ambiguous so it might be difficult to organise the data.

An advantage of unstructured data is that it can be more flexible as it does not have a structure to adhere to. There can be a lot more data within unstructured data than structured data. A disadvantage of unstructured data is that there can be a lot of unnecessary information making it difficult for the information to be analysed.



Today there is a lot more unstructured data due to the increase of social media where a lot of big data is derived from. Before internet was made most of the data was structured because it was easier and quicker to analyse structured data.