[thelist] Very Large MySQL Table

[Fred Jones]

> If you're using a MyISAM as your storage engine, the count(*) should return
> instantly.  If you're using InnoDB, then you'll need more RAM and
> horsepower.  You probably should be using MyISAM in this case.

First try at converting failed--it just crashed. But I will try again.
Perhaps I will upload first. :)

> If you're dealing with 6gb tables, a web hosting account isn't going to give
> you very usable environment.  I'd recommend getting some modern dedicated
> server or even VPS with a nice allotment of RAM.  Don't jump through hopes
> with fancy partitioning schemes to overcome a lack of hardware - end of the
> day, you will always have 185 million rows to search through.

Good point. :)

> But, OTOH, if it's just for a single customer ... 'find out how many people have registered domain names containing the phrase "metal halide coatings" so we can see if that would be a market differentiator for us' ... 'what about "copper hydride coatings"?' ... then screw it:  If those queries take 16 hours to run - then that's what they take to run.

You are correct--this is akin to the task at hand. OK, based on this
and the above comment, perhaps I should just upload it as is, run some
searches and see if the host complains. Probably they will, or at
least the process will terminate--most hosts I think only let PHP run
about 60 seconds.

But what I am wondering now is how do DNS's work? Unless I am
mistaken, when I request evolt.org in my browser, it goes to my local
DNS who looks up that domain name and then directs my request to the
correct server. Even if you will say that more commonly requested
domain names are cached, I have never (ever) had more than an
instant's delay going to any site I have ever visited, aside from the
occasional slow site which I always attributed to the host of that
site.

How do these machines do these lookups so fast? And I presume they're
high-traffic machines as well, generally speaking. Perhaps I am
misunderstanding how they work.

Fred