different type of mysql, why?

guitarman · fourth grade Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 728

I have noticed that there are several types of mysql. They are InnoDB and MyISAM to name a few.

What are they? What's the different and why mySQL makes use of so many types?

HarryR · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:39 pm Post subject:

Hi guitarman.
MyISAM is relatively simple and extremely fast, but can have issues if you're doing lots of inserts, updates, deletes and selects because all modification operations block the table from everything else (e.g. they need an exclusive lock).

Whereas InnoDB has transaction support, meaning that updates, inserts and selects can co-exist as the database is kept in a consistant state.

Google around for: "ACID transactions" or "Referential integrity" (two of the things that InnoDB supports which MyISAM doesn't).