MySQL Engines: InnoDB vs. MyISAM – A Comparison of Pros and Cons

MySQL Engines: InnoDB vs. MyISAM – A Comparison of Pros and Cons

by Yang Yang on September 2, 2009

    The 2 major types of table storage engines for MySQL databases are InnoDB and MyISAM. To summarize the differences of features and performance,
  1. InnoDB is newer while MyISAM is older.
  2. InnoDB is more complex while MyISAM is simpler.
  3. InnoDB is more strict in data integrity while MyISAM is loose.
  4. InnoDB implements row-level lock for inserting and updating while MyISAM implements table-level lock.
  5. InnoDB has transactions while MyISAM does not.
  6. InnoDB has foreign keys and relationship contraints while MyISAM does not.
  7. InnoDB has better crash recovery while MyISAM is poor at recovering data integrity at system crashes.
  8. MyISAM has full-text search index while InnoDB has not.

In light of these differences, InnoDB and MyISAM have their unique advantages and disadvantages against each other. They each are more suitable in some scenarios than the other.

Advantages of InnoDB

  1. InnoDB should be used where data integrity comes a priority because it inherently takes care of them by the help of relationship constraints and transactions.
  2. Faster in write-intensive (inserts, updates) tables because it utilizes row-level locking and only hold up changes to the same row that’s being inserted or updated.

Disadvantages of InnoDB

  1. Because InnoDB has to take care of the different relationships between tables, database administrator and scheme creators have to take more time in designing the data models which are more complex than those of MyISAM.
  2. Consumes more system resources such as RAM. As a matter of fact, it is recommended by many that InnoDB engine be turned off if there’s no substantial need for it after installation of MySQL.
  3. No full-text indexing.

Advantages of MyISAM

  1. Simpler to design and create, thus better for beginners. No worries about the foreign relationships between tables.
  2. Faster than InnoDB on the whole as a result of the simpler structure thus much less costs of server resources.
  3. Full-text indexing.
  4. Especially good for read-intensive (select) tables.

Disadvantages of MyISAM

  1. No data integrity (e.g. relationship constraints) check, which then comes a responsibility and overhead of the database administrators and application developers.
  2. Doesn’t support transactions which is essential in critical data applications such as that of banking.
  3. Slower than InnoDB for tables that are frequently being inserted to or updated, because the entire table is locked for any insert or update.

The comparison is pretty straightforward. InnoDB is more suitable for data critical situations that require frequent inserts and updates. MyISAM, on the other hand, performs better with applications that don’t quite depend on the data integrity and mostly just select and display the data.

修改mysql的默认存储引擎

  1. 查看mysql存储引擎命令,在mysql>提示符下搞入
    show engines;

    字段 Support为:Default表示默认存储引擎  ,如下图:

  2. 设置InnoDB为默认引擎:在配置文件my.cnf中的 [mysqld] 下面加入default-storage-engine=INNODB 一句
    • Ubuntu系统下,my.cnf文件的路径为:/etc/mysql/my.cnf
  3. 重启mysql服务器:mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown或者service mysqld restart 登录mysql数据库

MySql实现远程连接

1、进入mysql,创建一个新用户root,密码为root

   格式:grant 权限 on 数据库名.表名 to 用户@登录主机 identified by “用户密码”;


           grant select,update,insert,delete on *.* to root@192.168.1.12 identified by “root”;


   原先数据表结构

mysql> use mysql;

Database changed

mysql> select host,user,password from user;

+———–+——+——————————————-+
| host      | user | password                                  |
+———–+——+——————————————-+
| localhost | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
+———–+——+——————————————-+

   执行上述语句后结果

mysql> use mysql;
Database changed
mysql> select host,user,password from user;
+————–+——+——————————————-+
| host         | user | password                                  |
+————–+——+——————————————-+
| localhost    | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
| 192.168.1.12 | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
+————–+——+——————————————-+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

 

   可以看到在user表中已有刚才创建的root用户。host字段表示登录的主机,其值可以用IP,也可用主机名,

   (1)有时想用本地IP登录,那么可以将以上的Host值改为自己的Ip即可。

2、实现远程连接(授权法)

   将host字段的值改为%就表示在任何客户端机器上能以root用户登录到mysql服务器,建议在开发时设为%。  
   update user set host = ’%’ where user = ’root’;

   将权限改为ALL PRIVILEGES

mysql> use mysql;
Database changed
mysql> grant all privileges  on *.* to root@’%’ identified by “root”;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select host,user,password from user;
+————–+——+——————————————-+
| host         | user | password                                  |
+————–+——+——————————————-+
| localhost    | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
| 192.168.1.12 | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
| %            | root | *81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B |
+————–+——+——————————————-+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

这样机器就可以以用户名root密码root远程访问该机器上的MySql.

3、实现远程连接(改表法)

use mysql;

update user set host = ‘%’ where user = ‘root’;

这样在远端就可以通过root用户访问Mysql.