SHOW [STORAGE] ENGINES

SHOW ENGINES displays status information about the server's storage engines. This is particularly useful for checking whether a storage engine is supported, or to see what the default engine is. SHOW TABLE TYPES is a deprecated synonym.

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
      Engine: MEMORY
     Support: YES
     Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 2. row ***************************
      Engine: MyISAM
     Support: DEFAULT
     Comment: Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 3. row ***************************
      Engine: InnoDB
     Support: YES
     Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys
Transactions: YES
          XA: YES
  Savepoints: YES
*************************** 4. row ***************************
      Engine: EXAMPLE
     Support: YES
     Comment: Example storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 5. row ***************************
      Engine: ARCHIVE
     Support: YES
     Comment: Archive storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 6. row ***************************
      Engine: CSV
     Support: YES
     Comment: CSV storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 7. row ***************************
      Engine: BLACKHOLE
     Support: YES
     Comment: /dev/null storage engine (anything you write »
              to it disappears)
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 8. row ***************************
      Engine: FEDERATED
     Support: YES
     Comment: Federated MySQL storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 9. row ***************************
      Engine: MRG_MYISAM
     Support: YES
     Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO

The output from SHOW ENGINES may vary according to the MySQL version used and other factors. The values shown in the Support column indicate the server's level of support for different features, as shown here:

A value of NO means that the server was compiled without support for the feature, so it cannot be activated at runtime.

A value of DISABLED occurs either because the server was started with an option that disables the feature, or because not all options required to enable it were given. In the latter case, the error log file should contain a reason indicating why the option is disabled. See Section 5.11.2, “The Error Log”.

You might also see DISABLED for a storage engine if the server was compiled to support it, but was started with a --skip-engine option. Only the InnoDB, and MERGE engines can be disabled in this way. For the NDB Cluster storage engine, DISABLED means the server was compiled with support for MySQL Cluster, but was not started with the --ndb-cluster option.

All MySQL servers support MyISAM tables, because MyISAM is the default storage engine.

The Transactions, XA, and Savepoints columns were added in MySQL 5.1.2. They indicate whether the storage engine supports transactions, XA transactions, and savepoints, respectively.