Questions

Questions and Answers

28.2.1: Where can I obtain complete documentation for MySQL storage engines and the pluggable storage engine architecture?

See Chapter 14, Storage Engines and Table Types. That chapter contains information about all MySQL storage engines except for the NDB storage engine used for MySQL Cluster; NDB is covered in Chapter 15, MySQL Cluster.

MySQL Enterprise.  For expert advice about the storage engine(s) most suitable to your circumstances subscribe to the MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Service. For more information see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

28.2.2: Are there any new storage engines in MySQL 5.1?

MySQL 5.1 introduces an alpha version of the new Falcon storage engine.

Falcon support is not available in the standard MySQL 5.1 release. Falcon is available only in a specially forked release of MySQL 5.1. Information is provided here for evaluation purposes only.

For information about the Falcon storage engine, see Using Falcon.

There have also been significant improvements in existing storage engines, in particular for the NDB storage engine that forms the basis for MySQL Cluster.

28.2.3: Have any storage engines been removed in MySQL 5.1?

Yes. MySQL 5.1 no longer supports the BDB storage engine. Any existing BDB tables should be converted to another storage engine before upgrading to MySQL 5.1.

28.2.4: What are the unique benefits of the ARCHIVE storage engine?

The ARCHIVE storage engine is ideally suited for storing large amounts of data without indexes; it has a very small footprint, and performs selects using table scans. See Section 14.10, “The ARCHIVE Storage Engine”, for details.

28.2.5: Do the new features in MySQL 5.1 apply to all storage engines?

The general new features such as views, stored procedures, triggers, INFORMATION_SCHEMA, precision math (DECIMAL column type), and the BIT column type, apply to all storage engines. There are also additions and changes for specific storage engines.