17. An apparatus for compressing genetic sequencing data in a text-based format, the apparatus including a processor and a non-transitory processor-readable medium having processor-executable instructions stored thereon, the processor-executable instructions comprising instructions for: receiving genetic sequencing data obtained using a high throughput genetic sequencing instrument; parsing information included in text of the genetic sequencing data into a plurality of fields, wherein the information includes title information, sequence data and quality data and wherein the plurality of fields includes a title information field, a sequence data field and a quality data field; collecting statistics with respect to one or more symbols represented by strings that are included in each of the plurality of fields; identifying, for each of the plurality of fields, an encoding algorithm that achieves greatest compression gains with respect to the field based on the collected statistics, by determining, for each field of the genetic sequencing data, an optimized encoding algorithm selected from the group consisting of an arithmetic encoding algorithm, a Markov encoding algorithm, and a Huffman encoding algorithm; generating bitstreams, compressed from the genetic sequencing data, by encoding each of the plurality of fields of the genetic sequencing data using the respective identified encoding algorithm; and outputting a unified bitstream by merging the generated bitstreams encoded for each of the plurality of fields.
17. An apparatus for compressing genetic sequencing data in a text-based format, the apparatus including a processor and a non-transitory processor-readable medium having processor-executable instructions stored thereon, the processor-executable instructions comprising instructions for: receiving genetic sequencing data obtained using a high throughput genetic sequencing instrument; parsing information included in text of the genetic sequencing data into a plurality of fields, wherein the information includes title information, sequence data and quality data and wherein the plurality of fields includes a title information field, a sequence data field and a quality data field; collecting statistics with respect to one or more symbols represented by strings that are included in each of the plurality of fields; identifying, for each of the plurality of fields, an encoding algorithm that achieves greatest compression gains with respect to the field based on the collected statistics, by determining, for each field of the genetic sequencing data, an optimized encoding algorithm selected from the group consisting of an arithmetic encoding algorithm, a Markov encoding algorithm, and a Huffman encoding algorithm; generating bitstreams, compressed from the genetic sequencing data, by encoding each of the plurality of fields of the genetic sequencing data using the respective identified encoding algorithm; and outputting a unified bitstream by merging the generated bitstreams encoded for each of the plurality of fields. 23. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the instructions for collecting statistics includes instructions for determining an occurrence of ambiguous symbols in quality scores included in the text, and wherein the instructions for generating include generating the bitstreams by encoding the occurrence once.