Where does mysql store data?

Question

Where does mysql store data? I found out (by using mysql>SELECT @@datadir ) that it's in var/lib/mysql - but that can't be it. I have a quite big database (4 GB) called 'bot', but all the files in the 'bot' subdirectory (var/lib/mysql/bot) have only 280KB. Where is the rest?

One more thing - 99% of the database's size is a text column in one of the tables - I know that mysql stores it in separate files, but does it create one file per record?

I found a big file in the var/lib/mysql directory named ibdata1 - its size is over 8GB - what is it? (btw, there are other databases as well in the var/lib/mysql directory).

Answer 1

From here:

Windows

1. Locate the my.ini, which store in the MySQL installation folder.

For Example, C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\my.ini

2. Open the “my.ini” with our favor text editor.

#Path to installation directory. All paths are usually resolved relative to this. basedir="C:/Program Files/MySQL/MySQL Server 5.1/"   #Path to the database root datadir="C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/MySQL/MySQL Server 5.1/Data/" 

Find the “datadir”, this is the where does MySQL stored the data in Windows.

---

Linux

1. Locate the my.cnf with the find / -name my.cnf command.

yongmo@myserver:~$ find / -name my.cnf find: /home/lost+found: Permission denied find: /lost+found: Permission denied /etc/mysql/my.cnf 

2. View the my.cnf file like this: cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf

yongmo@myserver:~$ cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf # # The MySQL database server configuration file. # # You can copy this to one of: # - "/etc/mysql/my.cnf" to set global options, # - "~/.my.cnf" to set user-specific options. #  [mysqld] # # * Basic Settings # user   = mysql pid-file = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid socket  = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock port   = 3306 basedir  = /usr datadir  = /var/lib/mysql tmpdir  = /tmp language = /usr/share/mysql/english skip-external-locking 

3. Find the “datadir”, this is where does MySQL stored the data in Linux system.