Question

Can I safely switch to Innodb file-per-table and delete ibdata1? Here’s my plan of attack. I have a recent backup of all data.

1. I added innodb_file_per_table=1 to /etc/my.cnf, and restarted
2. I ran ALTER tablename ENGINE=InnoDB; on each Innodb table

Next, I’d like to:

1. Stop MySQL
2. Delete ibdata1, ib_logfile0, ib_logfile1
3. Start MySQL

Will this work?

Answer 1

According to the documentation:

With multiple tablespaces enabled, InnoDB stores each newly created
table in its own tbl_name.ibd file in the appropriate database
directory. Unlike the MyISAM storage engine, with its separate
tbl_name.MYD and tbl_name.MYI files for indexes and data, InnoDB
stores the data and the indexes together in a single .ibd file. The
tbl_name.frm file is still created as usual.

If you remove the innodb_file_per_table line from my.cnf and restart
the server, InnoDB creates any new tables inside the shared tablespace
files.

You can always access both tables in the system tablespace and tables
in their own tablespaces, regardless of the file-per-table setting.

The answer to your question: NO, you can’t delete ibdata1, ib_logfile0 or ib_logfile1, because just enabling the option does NOT move your existing data.