How does caching strategies work internally in MySQL?

MySQL employs various caching strategies to enhance performance and speed up query execution by minimizing disk I/O operations. It uses the following main caching mechanisms:

  • Query Cache: This caches the results of SQL queries, so when identical queries are executed, MySQL can quickly return results from the cache instead of executing the query again.
  • InnoDB Buffer Pool: Used primarily in the InnoDB storage engine, this cache stores data and indexes in memory, significantly speeding up data retrieval and reducing the need to interact with the disk.
  • Key Buffer: This is used by the MyISAM storage engine to cache indexes for tables, enhancing query performance involving indexed data.
  • Table Cache: This keeps track of open tables and their metadata to avoid unnecessary disk accesses when multiple connections refer to the same table.

Here is an example of enabling the query cache in MySQL:

SET GLOBAL query_cache_size = 16777216; -- Set cache size to 16MB SET GLOBAL query_cache_type = ON; -- Enable query cache

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