Explanation/Reference:
Explanation:
The Optimized Row Columnar (ORC) file format provides a highly efficient way to store Hive data. It was designed to overcome limitations of the other Hive file formats. Using ORC files improves performance when Hive is reading, writing, and processing data.
Compared with RCFile format, for example, ORC file format has many advantages such as:
a single file as the output of each task, which reduces the NameNode's load

Hive type support including datetime, decimal, and the complex types (struct, list, map, and union)

light-weight indexes stored within the file

skip row groups that don't pass predicate filtering

seek to a given row

block-mode compression based on data type

run-length encoding for integer columns

dictionary encoding for string columns

concurrent reads of the same file using separate RecordReaders

ability to split files without scanning for markers

bound the amount of memory needed for reading or writing

metadata stored using Protocol Buffers, which allows addition and removal of fields

Reference: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual
+ORC#LanguageManualORC-ORCFileFormat