How to Turn Off Innodb Engine in Mysql

The most commonly used storage engine in MySQL are MyISAM and InnoDB.

With these storage engine there are some advantages and disadvantages according to application needs.

The main difference between MyISAM and INNODB are :

  1. MyISAM does not support transactions by tables while InnoDB supports.
    There are no possibility of row-level locking, relational integrity in MyISAM but with InnoDB this is possible. MyISAM has table-level locking.
  2. InnoDB does not support FULLTEXT index while MyISAM supports.
  3.  Performance speed of MyISAM table is much higher as compared with tables in InnoDB.
  4. InnoDB is better option while you are dealing with larger database because it supports transactions, volume while MyISAM is suitable for small project.
  5. As InnoDB supports row-level locking which means inserting and updating is much faster as compared with MyISAM.
  6. InnoDB supports ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) property while MyISAM does not support.
  7. In InnoDB table,AUTO_INCREMENT field is a part of index.

When Mysql is installed, Innodb Engine is set to ON by default. You can verify whether Innodb is set to On or Off by using ‘mysqladmin variables’. Login to the server as root and execute:


root@host [~]# mysqladmin variables | grep have_innodb
| have_innodb                     | ENABLED


To turn off Innodb, you need to edit the Mysql Configuration file at /etc/my.cnf and add the following line:

skip-innodb

Save the file and restart the MySQL service. You now execute the ‘mysqladmin variables’ to check the status of Innodb engine.