In MySQL,
partitioning is a way to separate the data in one table into
smaller “sub-tables” for better query performance and data
management.
For example, let’s say that you have a database containing
numerous accounting transactions. You could just store all of
these transactions in one table, but you only need to keep seven
year’s worth of data for tax purposes. Instead of placing all of
the data in one table, and then deleting the old data from that
table, you could split the table into partitions with each
partition representing one year’s worth of data.
Then, after seven years, you could delete/drop the old partition.
Partitions are flexible, as you can add, drop, redefine, merge,
or split existing partitions (there are other options on what you
could do with this data as well). Also, if you have a table that
is going to contain a lot of rows, partitioning your data would …
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