InnoDB (MySQL 5.5 Default Engine) Slower on INSERT

This section provides a tutorial example showing that InnoDB, the MySQL 5.5 storage engine, is about 1,000 times slower than MyISAM storage engine.

To find out why MySQL 5.5 and higher is so slow to insert records comparing to MySQL 5.0 I searched the Internet and found the answer. By default, MySQL 5.5 creates table using the InnoDB storage engine, while MySQL 5.0 uses the MyISAM engine. So the performance difference is mainly due to the difference of the storage engine.

Let's take a look at the current storage engine of the table, drop the table and create the table again with the MyISAM engine:

herong> mysql -u root

mysql> use HerongDB;
Database changed

mysql> show table status;
| Name    | Engine | Version | Row_format |...
| profile | InnoDB |      10 | Dynamic    |...

mysql> drop table profile;

mysql> create table profile (
    -> ID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
    -> FirstName VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL,
    -> LastName VARCHAR(20),
    -> Point REAL DEFAULT 0.0,
    -> BirthDate DATE DEFAULT '2000-12-31',
    -> ModTime TIMESTAMP DEFAULT '2026-12-31 23:59:59.999')
    -> ENGINE=MyISAM;

mysql> show table status;
| Name    | Engine | Version | Row_format |...
| profile | MyISAM |      10 | Dynamic    |...

Now re-run MySqlPerformancePreparedStatement.java a macOS system with a 2.6 GHz processor, running JDK 13, MySQL 8.0.17 and MySQL Connector/J 8.0.19:

PreparedStatement insert 10000 rows with 3314 milliseconds

The total execution time dropped from 4373 milliseconds to 3314 milliseconds. So MyISAM is slightly faster than InnoDB for simple inserting record operations.

As a reference, here is the result on a Windows 7 system with a 2.5GHz processor, running JDK 1.8, MySQL 5.5 and MySQL Connector/J 5.1.36:

PreparedStatement insert 10000 rows with 879 milliseconds

The total execution time dropped from 945810 milliseconds to 879 milliseconds. So MyISAM is about 1,000 times faster than InnoDB for simple inserting record operations.

Here is summary of performance results on this program in the past with different versions of storage engine, MySQL, Java, and JDBC driver:

Operation: PreparedStatement for INSERT

Execution   Storage   MySQL    Java      JDBC     Computer    CPU
Time (ms)   Engine    Server   Version   Driver   System      GHz
---------   -------   ------   -------   ------   -------     ---
     3314   MyISAM    8.0      13        8.0      macOS 10    2.6
     4373   InnoDB    8.0      13        8.0      macOS 10    2.6
      879   MyISAM    5.5       8        5.1      Windows 7   2.5
   945810   InnoDB    5.5       8        5.1      Windows 7   2.5
     1281   MyISAM    5.0       6        5.0      Windows XP  1.0

As you can see, MySQL and JDBC driver 8.0 is much slower than MySQL and JDBC driver 5.5. Why? Maybe macOS 10 is slower than Windows 7?

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) Introduction

 JDK (Java SE) Installation

 Installing and Running Java DB - Derby

 Derby (Java DB) JDBC Driver

 Derby (Java DB) JDBC DataSource Objects

 Java DB (Derby) - DML Statements

 Java DB (Derby) - ResultSet Objects of Queries

 Java DB (Derby) - PreparedStatement

 MySQL Installation on Windows

 MySQL JDBC Driver (MySQL Connector/J)

MySQL - PreparedStatement

 PreparedStatement Overview

 PreparedStatement with Parameters

 PreparedStatement in Batch Mode

 Performance of Inserting Rows with a PreparedStatement

InnoDB (MySQL 5.5 Default Engine) Slower on INSERT

 Performance of Inserting Rows with a Regular Statement

 Performance of Inserting Rows with a ResultSet

 MySQL - Reference Implementation of JdbcRowSet

 MySQL - JBDC CallableStatement

 MySQL CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 MySQL BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Oracle Express Edition Installation on Windows

 Oracle JDBC Drivers

 Oracle - Reference Implementation of JdbcRowSet

 Oracle - PreparedStatement

 Oracle - JBDC CallableStatement

 Oracle CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 Oracle BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition

 Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - Query Statements and Result Sets

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DatabaseMetaData Object

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DDL Statements

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DML Statements

 SQL Server - PreparedStatement

 SQL Server CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 SQL Server BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - Flat Text Files

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS Access

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS SQL Server

 Summary of JDBC Drivers and Database Servers

 Using Connection Pool with JDBC

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB