Table 1.

Performance measures of our new format versus the PLINK binary format and the SpeedGene format on the WTCCC dataset

Format	Time to compress	RAM [MB] to compress	Output size [MB]	Time to load
Text file	–	–	21 564	–
PLINK binary format	–	–	1636	0:02:52
SpeedGene format	3:16:40	77	962	0:01:56
New format	0:01:19	123	589	0:00:17
GZIPped PLINK binary format	0:01:36	<1	546	0:03:06
TGC format	NAa	$>8000$	$403+900$	0:03:46

^aNot reported, too much RAM required.