# key\_buffer\_size \> indexes' size?

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/key-buffer-size-indexes-size/429>\
**Category:** Other MySQL® Questions\
**Created:** [September 2, 2007, 10:17am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/key-buffer-size-indexes-size/429 "2007-09-02T10:17:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jcn50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jcn50](https://forums.percona.com/u/jcn50)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2007, 10:17am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/key-buffer-size-indexes-size/429/1 "2007-09-02T10:17:00Z")

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Hello all,

First of all: thanks for this great forum! 😃

I was wondering if the key\_buffer\_size should always be superior to the total size of all indexes?..

For example, let’s say all my indexes takes a 16M space, should I tweak the key\_buffer\_size to 17M?

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Peter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/peter/32/2_2.png) [@Peter](https://forums.percona.com/u/Peter)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 6:56am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/key-buffer-size-indexes-size/429/2 "2007-09-03T06:56:03Z")

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It depends on a lot of factors.

If your key buffer is bigger than index it means all your index will fit in key cache, which is good. This is however impossible for large databases.

Plus you need to think about other needs - innodb buffer pool, memory for OS to cache MyISAM table data etc.

If you have memory for all of these sure go ahead and do it.

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**Author:** ![allworknoplay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@allworknoplay](https://forums.percona.com/u/allworknoplay)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/key-buffer-size-indexes-size/429/3 "2007-09-08T12:50:49Z")

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I wish my indexes only totaled up to 16megs!!!

😃 😃 😃 😃