Storage engine là thành phần phần mềm mà DBMS dùng để xử lý các thao tác SQL như tạo, đọc, cập nhật, xóa dữ liệu. Engine phổ biến nhất là InnoDB (mặc định từ MySQL 5.5+). Trước MySQL 5.5, mặc định là MyISAM.
Dùng lệnh SHOW ENGINES để xem danh sách engine được hỗ trợ:
mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row *************************** Engine: FEDERATED Support: NO Comment: Federated MySQL storage engine Transactions: NULL XA: NULL Savepoints: NULL *************************** 2. row *************************** Engine: MRG_MYISAM Support: YES Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 3. row *************************** Engine: MyISAM Support: YES Comment: MyISAM storage engine Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 4. row *************************** Engine: BLACKHOLE Support: YES Comment: /dev/null storage engine (anything you write to it disappear) Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 5. row *************************** Engine: CSV Support: YES Comment: CSV storage engine Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 6. row *************************** Engine: MEMORY Support: YES Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 7. row *************************** Engine: ARCHIVE Support: YES Comment: Archive storage engine Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO *************************** 8. row *************************** Engine: InnoDB Support: DEFAULT Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys Transactions: YES XA: YES Savepoints: YES *************************** 9. row *************************** Engine: PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA Support: YES Comment: Performance Schema Transactions: NO XA: NO Savepoints: NO 9 rows in set (0.00 sec)