# single database vs multiple databases

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800>\
**Category:** Other MySQL® Questions\
**Created:** [June 13, 2008, 7:45am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800 "2008-06-13T07:45:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dsswanson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@dsswanson](https://forums.percona.com/u/dsswanson)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 7:45am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800/1 "2008-06-13T07:45:10Z")

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I have an application that currently uses a single database with thousands of tables (MyISAM) containing hit counter data. Is there a performance benefit or loss in using multiple databases vs a single database? The current database is about 106GB on disk.

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**Author:** ![erkules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@erkules](https://forums.percona.com/u/erkules)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 7:50am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800/2 "2008-06-13T07:50:12Z")

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single vs. multiple databases on a machine? Not realy. But you should think about using “multiple” Tables or Partitioning )

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**Author:** ![dsswanson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@dsswanson](https://forums.percona.com/u/dsswanson)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2008, 7:53am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800/3 "2008-06-13T07:53:39Z")

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The data is currently being kept in a table for each day (which is why there are 1000s of tables going back to every day since 2002) but if there is a more efficient storage mechanism recommended I am all ears. IT currently takes about 10 hours to do a restore of this backup (backup using mysqldump to file) and if we can lower our backup/restore times it would be all the better.

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**Author:** ![debug](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/debug/32/772_2.png) [@debug](https://forums.percona.com/u/debug)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 4:03am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/single-database-vs-multiple-databases/800/4 "2008-06-30T04:03:43Z")

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I recommend to use LVM snapshots for backups. MySQL data directory should be on LVM partition for it.