Richard Heyes wrote: >I've not come across many databases where 20-50 tables have 10 million >rows each. And with a table of that size, then I might be coerced into >thinking about the storage requirements a little more. Maybe. Not on MySQL, but I've worked on databases with hundreds of millions of rows, in multiple tables. Converting varchars to chars would mean huge amounts of expensive SAN storage, plus the overheads of scanning through rows on disc suddenly become important. Maybe not applicable to little website databases, but again... know your data and pick the appropriate type. I use a mix of char, varchar and text depending on the requirements. And enum :) >> Now add another 20 to 50 tables depending on >> the database. If you want to throw away money go ahead, but I don't know >> too many clients that want to waste 10 gigs of mostly padded space. > >I don't know of many clients who care as long as it is performant and >cost effective. Wasting 10 Gigs is not a great deal when you have a >drive measured in the hundreds of Gigs. Performant isn't a word - Microsoft marketing term. Wasting 10GB is important when it's expensive storage, backed up, replicated, transferred to other systems over comms links, etc. It also means more disc access, unless you have a surplus 10GB RAM for extra caching. Disc access is usually what kills database performance. -- Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia "Let the laddie play wi the knife - he'll learn" - The Wee Book of Calvin -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
