For MyISAM one of the most important variables is the Key Buffer.  The Key Buffer is sometimes called the Key Cache. It's used as a buffer for the indices of MyISAM tables. There is some overhead in the buffer depending on the configured key block size.

The official way to calculate the key buffer usage as documented in the MySQL Reference manual:

1 - ((Key_blocks_unused * key_cache_block_size) / key_buffer_size)

 This will return the factor, so you have to multiply it with 100 to get the percentage. The Key_blocks_unused is used instead of the more obvious Key_blocks_used. This is due to the fact that Key_blocks_used is the maximum number of key blocks ever used. It will not return to 0 after a FLUSH TABLES.

This calculation does not take the overhead in account. The key buffer efficiency can be calculated if the key buffer is empty or (has been) completely full.

If …

I have not caused a fist fight in a while, so it's time to take off the gloves. I claim that somewhere around of 99% of advice about tuning MySQL's key cache hit ratio is wrong, even when you hear it from experts. There are two major problems with the key buffer hit ratio, and a host of smaller ones. If you make some assumptions that are very hard to prove, there actually is a very limited use for the statistics from which the ratio is derived (but not the ratio itself, which you should ignore). Read on for the details.

In this article, I will use key buffer, key_buffer, and key cache interchangeably. However, I will be careful about the difference between "rate" and "ratio". In this article, the key cache miss rate is defined as the number of misses per unit of time, with the units of operations per second. The key cache miss ratio is the ratio between reads from the disk and reads from the cache; it is a dimensionless …