# Per thread buffers: What are they really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Other MySQL® Questions\ **Created:** [October 18, 2007, 12:21pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/per-thread-buffers-what-are-they-really/493 "2007-10-18T12:21:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dwellman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecc23a/32.png) [@dwellman](https://forums.percona.com/u/dwellman)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 12:21pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/per-thread-buffers-what-are-they-really/493/1 "2007-10-18T12:21:26Z")
Basically commenting on [http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2006/05/17/mysql-server-](http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2006/05/17/mysql-server-) memory-usage When computing maximum memory usage for a thread I have one source that says: another that says: yet another: Regardless, all attest the importance of keeping per thread memory allocation reasonable; hoverver, there is no way to even generically estimate what it could/should be? ---
**Author:** ![xxclixxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/67e7ee/32.png) [@xxclixxx](https://forums.percona.com/u/xxclixxx)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/per-thread-buffers-what-are-they-really/493/2 "2007-10-22T13:22:04Z")
I’m not sure how it does it, but a tool I found tells you at the top what the max possible usage would be with the settings you have: [URL][http://rackerhacker.com/mysqltuner/[/URL]](http://rackerhacker.com/mysqltuner/%5B/URL%5D) ---
**Author:** ![dwellman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecc23a/32.png) [@dwellman](https://forums.percona.com/u/dwellman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/per-thread-buffers-what-are-they-really/493/3 "2007-10-22T17:04:06Z")
mysqltuner uses the first method. In full disclosure, that is the very reason why I sought a hard, fast answer. But there doesn’t seem to be one.