MySQL is the most popular open source RDBMS until now. From its history, MySQL was created in 1995 and sponsored by MySQL AB, the Swedish company. MySQL is widely used as a database solution for web-based applications such as online store, e-commerce and CMS (Content Management System). In 2013, MySQL was the second most widely used database and became the first to open source database.
MySQL uses files or memories to store data. MySQL data is stored using different techniques. Each technique has different storage mechanisms, indexing facilities, and locking levels to provide different ranges of capabilities and functions. With these different techniques, processing speeds and other benefits will be gained to improve the overall functionality of the application.
Data storage with different techniques in MySQL is called a storage engine or table type. MySQL itself has some storage engine ready for use. The two most preferred and most commonly used storage engines are InnoDB and MyISAM. InnoDB is default storage engine for MySQL version 5.5 and above, while MyISAM is default storage engine for MySQL before version 5.5.
If you have a website or another web application that uses MySQL as a database solution, you can check the storage engine used by MySQL via phpMyAdmin. Although you can also check the storage engine using SQL queries, but using phpMyAdmin will be easy because it has a graphical interface. phpMyAdmin is suitable for you if you are not familiar with SQL queries. Here is how to check MySQL Storage engine:
Log in to your cPanel account, in the Databases group, select phpMyAdmin.
On the phpMyAdmin page, select the database that you want check its storage engine .
Make sure you are in the Structure tab (1), in the Type column of the database table list, you can see the storege engine used by MySQL (2).
InnoDB is a secure storage engine for transactional processes in MySQL with commit, rollback, and crash-recovery capabilities to protect data. InnoDB stores data in clustered indexes to reduce I/O related to queries based on the primary key.
