[support] MyISAM vs InnoDB

[Pierre Rineau]

On Mon, 2009-03-23 at 18:52 +0100, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:32:34 +0100
> Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at theingots.org> wrote:
> 
> > Actually, I would love to know what those reasons are. Is it just
> > data integrity?
> > 
> > Our web host doesn't offer Postgres, so I can't seriously consider
> > that option, but I would be happy to hear more about the pros and
> > cons, just out of personal curiosity. You seem to suggest that
> > MySQL has faster reads for small databases. How small is "small"?
> > My boss likes speed. :)
> 
> MyISAM, InnoDB and PostgreSQL perform differently on different
> situation.
> Ease of development and safety of data may have an indirect impact
> on speed as well.
> 
> For some tasks MyISAM is reliable enough and "failure" won't impact
> the "average" speed. Once you add replication it may become your
> best solution.
> 
> I think that outside that scenario the only 2 good reason to chose
> InnoDB over PostgreSQL are:
> - you invested a lot in MySQL (your staff is made of MySQL black
>   belt)
> - you want to lower as much as possible the cost of maintaining
>   drupal sites and still data integrity and frequent writes aren't
>   your first priority but you're starting to feel the pain of
>   MyISAM. In my view most of the time this is going to be a
>   "diplomatic" choice... still not a "we seriously would like a bit
>   more data integrity/concurrency but we can't afford PostgreSQL"
>   choice. Once you're in the territory of "a bit more data integrity
>   and concurrency" you've already passed the threshold that will
>   make maintaining MySQL cheaper.
> 
> So most of the times the real reason to keep using InnoDB vs.
> PostgreSQL is your knowledge of the tool.

+1

> In most if not all the situations where you may chose InnoDB over
> MyISAM just on technical merits, PostgreSQL would be a better
> candidate... since there are other constraint that may influence
> your choice you may still prefer InnoDB.

+1

> And... as Michael Prasuhn wrote most of the sites don't have to deal
> with the problems InnoDB try to solve and when they run into them
> they have built up so much (too much?) MySQL knowledge and invested
> so much in MySQL tuning/coding that their best move is to switch to
> InnoDB.
>