Re: how things get messed up

[Ann W. Harrison]

Martijn Tonies wrote:
>>>
>>> For example, the Firebird DBMS stores (longer) Blob data not right
>>> there in the record, so whenever you don't request the blob (that is,
>>> not selecting it), it ignores it completely and it can go through the 
>>> file quickly.
>>
>> As do most of the MySQL storage engines.
> 

InnoDB uses a variety of strategies,

http://www.innodb.com/doc/innodb_plugin-1.0/innodb-row-format.html

MyISAM uses a strategy more like Firebird

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/storage-requirements.html

And here's a comment from a very experienced MySQL DBA

http://sheeri.com/archives/39

 > But they do seem to store "in line", right? If not, why would there be
 > any performance problems?

There are lots of ways to screw up storage.

Cheers,

Ann