The effective maximum table size for MySQL databases is usually determined by operating system constraints on file sizes, not by MySQL internal limits. For up-to-date information operating system file size limits, refer to the documentation specific to your operating system.
Windows users, please note that FAT and VFAT (FAT32) are not considered suitable for production use with MySQL. Use NTFS instead.
If you encounter a full-table error, there are several reasons why it might have occurred:
The disk might be full.
You are using InnoDB tables and have run
out of room in an InnoDB tablespace file.
The maximum tablespace size is four billion pages (64TB),
which is also the maximum size for a table. See
Section 14.11.8, “Limits on InnoDB Tables”.
Generally, partitioning of tables into multiple tablespace files is recommended for tables larger than 1TB in size.
You have hit an operating system file size limit. For
example, you are using MyISAM tables on
an operating system that supports files only up to 2GB in
size and you have hit this limit for the data file or index
file.
You are using a MyISAM table and the
space required for the table exceeds what is permitted by
the internal pointer size. MyISAM permits
data and index files to grow up to 256TB by default, but
this limit can be changed up to the maximum permissible size
of 65,536TB (2567 − 1
bytes).
If you need a MyISAM table that is larger
than the default limit and your operating system supports
large files, the CREATE TABLE
statement supports AVG_ROW_LENGTH and
MAX_ROWS options. See
Section 13.1.17, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”. The server uses these
options to determine how large a table to permit.
If the pointer size is too small for an existing table, you
can change the options with ALTER
TABLE to increase a table's maximum permissible
size. See Section 13.1.7, “ALTER TABLE Syntax”.
ALTER TABLEtbl_nameMAX_ROWS=1000000000 AVG_ROW_LENGTH=nnn;
You have to specify AVG_ROW_LENGTH only
for tables with BLOB or
TEXT columns; in this case,
MySQL can't optimize the space required based only on the
number of rows.
To change the default size limit for
MyISAM tables, set the
myisam_data_pointer_size,
which sets the number of bytes used for internal row
pointers. The value is used to set the pointer size for new
tables if you do not specify the MAX_ROWS
option. The value of
myisam_data_pointer_size
can be from 2 to 7. A value of 4 permits tables up to 4GB; a
value of 6 permits tables up to 256TB.
You can check the maximum data and index sizes by using this statement:
SHOW TABLE STATUS FROMdb_nameLIKE 'tbl_name';
You also can use myisamchk -dv /path/to/table-index-file. See Section 13.7.5, “SHOW Syntax”, or Section 4.6.3, “myisamchk — MyISAM Table-Maintenance Utility”.
Other ways to work around file-size limits for
MyISAM tables are as follows:
If your large table is read only, you can use myisampack to compress it. myisampack usually compresses a table by at least 50%, so you can have, in effect, much bigger tables. myisampack also can merge multiple tables into a single table. See Section 4.6.5, “myisampack — Generate Compressed, Read-Only MyISAM Tables”.
MySQL includes a MERGE library that
enables you to handle a collection of
MyISAM tables that have identical
structure as a single MERGE table.
See Section 15.8, “The MERGE Storage Engine”.
You are using the NDB storage
engine, in which case you need to increase the values for
the DataMemory and
IndexMemory configuration parameters in
your config.ini file. See
Section 18.3.2.1, “NDB Cluster Data Node Configuration Parameters”.
You are using the MEMORY
(HEAP) storage engine; in this case you
need to increase the value of the
max_heap_table_size system
variable. See Section 5.1.5, “Server System Variables”.