The Relational database model or schema is one that uses many tables that are all related to each other, hence the relational name tag.

With the data all being related there is no one main table, instead just many that are references for values throughout the tables.

The benefits of the relational model

Using the relational model means you get a scalable database that is very data-independent for its application. The database has high data integrity and is flexible to being expanded.

The relational model is compact and efficient as strings are rarely or never repeated, instead they get referenced with an id.

Example relational database

Mock example of a sports league Relational database model:

You can see above that each string has its own table with its own id in that table. This means efficiency is gained on not repeating strings rather much smaller integers.

With a relational modelled database, most tables need to be joined to become human-readable yet can function individually in the internal system.

An example of this is the fixture table, essentially it is all integers with a date string. It needs to be joined with the teams, players and arenas tables to get a name for their respective ids.

A negative for the Relational database model is its susceptibility to become complex and complicated if needing to join many tables.

Reading or storing time-series data could be an issue with the relational model as could be large text values.