MySQL supports several storage engines that act as handlers for different table types. MySQL storage engines include both those that handle transaction-safe tables and those that handle non-transaction-safe tables.

With MySQL 5.1, MySQL AB has introduced a new pluggable storage engine architecture that allows storage engines to be loaded into and unloaded from a running MySQL server.

This chapter describes each of the MySQL storage engines except for NDBCLUSTER, which is covered in MySQL Cluster. It also contains a description of the pluggable storage engine architecture (see Section 13.1, “Overview of MySQL Storage Engine Architecture”).

For answers to some commonly asked questions about MySQL storage engines, see Section A.2, “MySQL 5.1 FAQ — Storage Engines”.