There have been recent discussions about DROP TABLE performance in InnoDB. (You can refer to Peter’s post http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2011/02/03/performance-problem-with-innodb-and-drop-table/ and these bug reports: http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=51325 and http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=56332.) It may not sound that serious, but if your workload often uses DROP TABLE and you have a big buffer pool, it may be a significant issue. This can get [...]
Should we give a MySQL Query Cache a second chance ?
Over last few years I’ve been suggesting more people to disable Query Cache than to enable it. It can cause contention problems as well as stalls and due to coarse invalidation is not as efficient as it could be. These are however mostly due to neglect Query Cache received over almost 10 years, with very [...]
Thinking about running OPTIMIZE on your Innodb Table ? Stop!
Innodb/XtraDB tables do benefit from being reorganized often. You can get data physically laid out in primary key order as well as get better feel for primary key and index pages and so using less space, it is just OPTIMIZE TABLE might not be best way to do it. If you’re running Innodb Plugin on [...]
InnoDB memory allocation, ulimit, and OpenSUSE
I recently encountered an interesting case. A customer reported that mysqld crashed on start on OpenSUSE 11.2 kernel 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop x86_64 Â with 96 GB RAM when the innodb_buffer_pool_size was set to anything more than 62 GB. I decided to try it with 76 GB. The error message was an assert due to a failed malloc() [...]
Purge Thread Spiral of Death
I just wrote a large post on reasons for innodb main tablespace excessive growth and I thought it would make sense to explain briefly of why it is so frequently you have purge not being the problem at all and when out of no where you can see purge thread being unable to keep up [...]
Reasons for run-away main Innodb Tablespace
So you’re running MySQL With innodb_file_per_table option but your ibdata1 file which holds main (or system) tablespace have grown dramatically from its starting 10MB size. What could be the reason of this growth and what you can do about it ? There are few things which are always stored in main tablespace – these are [...]
How much memory Innodb Dictionary can take ?
The amount of memory Innodb will require for its data dictionary depends on amount of tables you have as well as number of fields and indexes. Innodb allocates this memory once table is accessed and keeps until server is shut down. In XtraDB we have an option to restrict that limit. So how much memory [...]
Why you should ignore MySQL’s key cache hit ratio
I have not caused a fist fight in a while, so it’s time to take off the gloves. I claim that somewhere around of 99% of advice about tuning MySQL’s key cache hit ratio is wrong, even when you hear it from experts. There are two major problems with the key buffer hit ratio, and [...]
How innodb_open_files affects performance
Recently I looked at table_cache sizing which showed larger table cache does not always provides the best performance. So I decided to look at yet another similar variable – innodb_open_files which defines how many files Innodb will keep open while working in innodb_file_per_table mode. Unlike MyISAM Innodb does not have to keep open file descriptor [...]
MySQL-Memcached or NOSQL Tokyo Tyrant – part 3
This is part 3 of our series. In part 1 we talked about boosting performance with memcached on top of MySQL, in Part 2 we talked about running 100% outside the data with memcached, and now in Part 3 we are going to look at a possible solution to free you from the database. The [...]

