# Innodb\_buffer\_pool\_size setting over ram size

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/innodb-buffer-pool-size-setting-over-ram-size/9397>\
**Category:** MySQL & MariaDB\
**Tags:** mysql, percona\
**Created:** [February 24, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/innodb-buffer-pool-size-setting-over-ram-size/9397 "2021-02-24T14:23:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rokj](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/rokj/32/1470_2.png) [@rokj](https://forums.percona.com/u/rokj)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/innodb-buffer-pool-size-setting-over-ram-size/9397/1 "2021-02-24T14:23:08Z")

</div>

Hi,

why does mysql allow innodb\_buffer\_pool\_size to be set more than its available memory in the system? But this is not much of a problem than that mysql then tries to allocate more memory than it is available at a certain moment (for example when system is busy) and sometimes this leads to oom kills.

Kind regads,  
Rok

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![matthewb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/matthewb/32/34_2.png) [@matthewb](https://forums.percona.com/u/matthewb)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/innodb-buffer-pool-size-setting-over-ram-size/9397/2 "2021-02-24T15:39:32Z")

</div>

Swap can be increased on the fly if memory is of concern. Some advanced motherboards allow DIMMs to be added while the system is powered on. MySQL leaves it up to the DBA to understand the consequences of setting too much RAM to MySQL.