A file-per-table tablespace is a single-table tablespace that is created in its own data file rather than in the system tablespace. Tables are created in file-per-table tablespaces when the innodb_file_per_table option is enabled. Otherwise, InnoDB tables are created in the system tablespace. Each file-per-table tablespace is represented by a single .ibd data file, which is created in the database directory by default.

File per-table tablespaces support DYNAMIC and COMPRESSED row formats which support features such as off-page storage for variable length data and table compression. For information about these features, and about other advantages of file-per-table tablespaces, see Section 14.10.4, “InnoDB File-Per-Table Tablespaces”.