Title: mySQL Efficiency?
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# mySQL Efficiency?

 *  [charismabiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/charismabiz/)
 * (@charismabiz)
 * [18 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/)
 * Say I have information about accounts; account basic information and account 
   extended information. The account information is used often due to profile searches,
   while the account profiles is only accessed when the user actually clicks on 
   a profile. What’s more efficient?
 * 1)One table with the account information along with the account profile
    2)Two
   tables, one with basic account info, the other with extended account info, and
   then doing a join when needed?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  [drmike](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drmike/)
 * (@drmike)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576822)
 * That’s a toughie.
 * I’d say one as you should only be pulling out the information that you need.
 * I’m not an expert though and far from it.
 *  [whooami](https://wordpress.org/support/users/whooami/)
 * (@whooami)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576824)
 * the efficacy doesn’t come from having data in one or two tables.. the efficacy
   is achieved by the query that retrieves the data.
 * If you write efficient queries it wont matter.
 *  Thread Starter [charismabiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/charismabiz/)
 * (@charismabiz)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576876)
 * whooami: won’t there by increased seek/search times if often-accessed data is
   included in the same table as less often accessed data tho?
 * ie: basic profiles would have to be scrolled and searched for (select in a loop),
   while extended profiles would only need to be accessed when viewing individual
   profiles (select 1)
 * Essentially trying to find the best balance between seek/search times in one 
   table versus extra resources required for joins
 *  [Pizdin Dim](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pizdin_dim/)
 * (@pizdin_dim)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576877)
 * Although my experience (from a few years ago) is **not** with MySQL, the team
   I worked with did some profiling and managed to prove that comparing:
 * 1. one table with 20 fields where you only want 3 selected to
    2. two tables —
   one with 3 fields and the second with 17
 * Two conclusions were reached, based on a dataset of (I think) around 100,000 
   rows:
 * 1. It makes **no** discernable difference between the two scenarions when you’re
   only selecting 3 fields.
 * 2. It **does** make a discernable differences when you have to also get some 
   of the other 17 fields.
 * Conclusion: Joins **are** expensive. Stick to having it in the one table, unless
   there’s a one-many relationship
 *  Thread Starter [charismabiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/charismabiz/)
 * (@charismabiz)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576879)
 * pizdin_dim, thanks for the info 🙂

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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 * 5 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [charismabiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/charismabiz/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/mysql-efficiency/#post-576879)
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