Questions

Questions and Answers

B.2.1: Where can I obtain complete documentation for MySQL storage engines and the pluggable storage engine architecture?

See Chapter 14, Storage Engines. That chapter contains information about all MySQL storage engines except for the NDB storage engine used for MySQL Cluster; NDB is covered in Chapter 17, MySQL Cluster NDB 6.1 - 7.1.

B.2.2: Are there any new storage engines in MySQL 5.1?

Yes:

B.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.

B.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 14.12, “The ARCHIVE Storage Engine”, for details.

B.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.