I have a fairly large database (100G+) made up of several schemas with all tables running in the InnoDB engine, primarily so that we can take advantage of LVM snapshots for backups. I was recently asked if we should optimize our tables. Knowing that this would necessarily require some down time, I started looking for answers to a key question:
How do I really know when I need to optimize a table?
The best answer I found, so far, was in this forum. The indicator, in that case, was to look for tables that have more than 10% free space. Well, it turns out that none of my tables have that much free space. But, that doesn't take into account possible index issues that might cause performance problems.
So, I'm wondering, is free space really the only indicator? If not, what else can I be looking at to try to make that determination whether to optimize a given table?
Thanks,
Dave
How do I really know when I need to optimize a table?
The best answer I found, so far, was in this forum. The indicator, in that case, was to look for tables that have more than 10% free space. Well, it turns out that none of my tables have that much free space. But, that doesn't take into account possible index issues that might cause performance problems.
So, I'm wondering, is free space really the only indicator? If not, what else can I be looking at to try to make that determination whether to optimize a given table?
Thanks,
Dave