Answer: Columnar file format, Micro-partitions

Snowflake stores table data using a combination of columnar file format and micro-partitions. The columnar format organizes data by columns rather than rows, which provides better compression and query performance for analytical workloads. Micro-partitions are Snowflake's automatic partitioning mechanism that groups data into small, contiguous storage units (typically 50-200MB compressed) that contain metadata for efficient pruning. These two features work together to enable Snowflake's performance optimizations. Options C (Text file format), D (Uncompressed), and E (User-defined partitions) are incorrect because Snowflake uses optimized compressed formats rather than plain text, always compresses data for storage efficiency, and uses automatic micro-partitions rather than requiring user-defined partitions.

Author: LeetQuiz Editorial Team