How Is Data Stored in a Graph Database

Graph data is kept in store files, each of which contain data for a specific part of the graph, such as nodes, relationships, labels and properties. Dividing the storage in this way facilitates highly performant graph traversals (as detailed above).

How do you store a graph in a relational database?

You have to store Nodes (Vertices) in one table, and Edges referencing a FromNode and a ToNode to convert a graph data structure to a relational data structure. And you are also right, that this ends up in a large number of lookups, because you are not able to partition it into subgraphs, that might be queried at once.

What type of database is a graph database?

Graph databases are commonly referred to as a NoSQL database – implying that the approach to storing, querying and describing these data structures differs significantly from a traditional relational database.