[consulting] Drupal server requirements

[John Handelaar]

Harry Slaughter wrote:
> John Handelaar wrote:
> ....
> 
>> And ferchrissakes don't let Drupal's installer use
>> MyISAM.  You'll need InnoDB.
> 
> Do you have any references to the reasoning that suggests InnoDB over 
> MyISAM? I have been under the impression that MyISAM is preferable in 
> situations where reads are much more prevalent than writes 
 > AND where
 > transactional support is not required. I'd be extremely interested in
 > learning if/why this is not actually true.

Out here in the real world, replace that with "MyISAM
is a total disaster in any high-traffic environment
where WRITEs occur at all".

While a WRITE is in progress, MyISAM locks the whole
table.  Result:

1.  All WRITEs wait until existing READs finish.

2.  *All* READs stop dead until the WRITEs are done.

3.  All new READs are created as new processes, happily
     queuing up, chewing memory like locusts, and ticking
     off their max-execution-time clocks and doing nothing
     else until 1 and 2 are done.

Repeat until you're fucked.

How many processes can you afford to start like that
before you knock MySQL over?

Who knows!  It's the server death Russian Roulette game!



OK, I'm done with today's MyISAM-is-a-piece-of-shit routine.
But I'll be here all week. Come again, tell your friends,
try the fish.




-- 
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John Handelaar

E  john at handelaar.org    T +353 21 427 9033
M  +353 85 748 3790    http://handelaar.org
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