Notes

Data Format for Large-Scale Audio and Text Data

1. Audio-Specific Formats (WAV, MP3)
   • Best For: Raw audio data storage.
   • Pros: Widely supported, easy to process with torchaudio.
   • Cons: Not efficient for large-scale direct training without preprocessing.
   • Usage: Raw audio data storage, paired with metadata for ML training.
2. WebDataset
   • Best For: Streaming data in distributed environments.
   • Pros: Ideal for large-scale, distributed training.
   • Cons: Requires understanding of sharding and streaming.
   • Usage: Distributed machine learning with large datasets stored in tar archives.
3. TFRecords
   • Best For: Sequential data access, TensorFlow compatibility.
   • Pros: Efficient for large datasets, shuffling, and streaming.
   • Cons: Primarily TensorFlow-focused, additional work needed for PyTorch integration.
   • Usage: Large-scale text or audio datasets in TensorFlow; possible but less seamless in PyTorch.
4. Tar Files
   • Best For: Archival, bundling files.
   • Pros: Simple, supports various file types.
   • Cons: Inefficient for direct ML workflows; requires extraction.
   • Usage: Storing and transporting collections of audio/text files.
5. Parquet
   • Best For: Columnar data, big data integration.
   • Pros: High compression, efficient for structured data, big data tools compatible.
   • Cons: Less intuitive for raw audio/text.
   • Usage: Tabular data or feature-rich datasets, especially when working with big data frameworks.
6. HDF5
   • Best For: Hierarchical, complex datasets.
   • Pros: Efficient storage, supports mixed data types.
   • Cons: Overhead of learning HDF5 API; large file sizes can be cumbersome.
   • Usage: Large, complex datasets with multiple data types (audio, text, metadata).
7. Zarr
   • Best For: Cloud-based, parallel processing.
   • Pros: Cloud-native, efficient for massive datasets.
   • Cons: Requires specialized libraries for access.
   • Usage: Scientific computing, cloud-based storage and access.
8. LMDB
   • Best For: Fast random access to large datasets.
   • Pros: Low overhead, fast read times.
   • Cons: Primarily key-value storage; less intuitive for non-tabular data.
   • Usage: Datasets requiring rapid access, such as image or audio datasets.
9. NPZ (Numpy ZIP)
   • Best For: Small to medium datasets.
   • Pros: Simple, integrates easily with NumPy and PyTorch.
   • Cons: Limited scalability for very large datasets.
   • Usage: Prototyping, research, smaller projects.
10. Apache Arrow
    • Best For: In-memory data processing.
    • Pros: Fast data interchange, zero-copy reads.
    • Cons: Primarily in-memory; not optimized for large-scale disk storage.
    • Usage: Data interchange between processing frameworks; efficient in-memory operations.
11. Petastorm
    • Best For: Distributed big data processing.
    • Pros: Supports sharding, Parquet integration.
    • Cons: Requires big data infrastructure.
    • Usage: Accessing large datasets stored in Parquet on distributed file systems.