Storage Engines: An Introduction Overview [Webcast Recap]

The plug-able storage engine architecture is a design feature that is really separates MySQL/MariaDB from the pack. This feature allows for running the storage engine, or engines that best meet your table’s needs. Choosing the right storage engine for your needs can make a huge impact on the performance of your database, but like many things in MySQL there can sometimes be too many options available to make the right choice clear.

Last week Max Mether hosted a webcast titled Introduction to Storage Engines. On this webcast he covered:

• The unique concept of storage engines
• What features are storage engine dependent and how they affect they the server works
• A deeper understanding of the most common engines (InnoDB, MyISAM, Memory etc)

Over the past few years the number of available storage engines for MySQL/MariaDB have grown considerably. No longer do you just have to choose between MyISAM and InnoDB, as there have been some great new additions (both open source and commercial). These include:

• XtraDB – a fork of InnoDB. There has been quite a bit of work that has gone in to tuning of this engine, and for most it is considered «the replacement» for InnoDB. It is also the default storage engine in MariaDB
• Sphinx Storage Engine – is a storage engine that talks with searchd to enable extremely fast text searching.
• TokuDB – If you have big data, and need fast inserts or data loads this could be just what you are looking for. Speeding up Indexes by 10x or more scalability is greatly improved. In fact, next week (Sept 19th) we will have Gerry, from TokuTek hosting a webcast titled Storage Engine Deep Dive: TokuDB.
• Aria – A «next generation» version of MyISAM developed by the MariaDB team. With better caching most see a great speed increase in GROUP BY and DISTINCT queries. Think of this as a faster, crash safe version of MyISAM.

If you are curious if your storage engine selection for each table is the right one for peak performance you may want to watch this webcast on demand. During the live session there were some great questions that were asked about specific use cases for many of these storage engines.

If you have any questions after watching this webcast you can contact us directly.

Watch On-Demand