# Writing to innodb reading from myisam

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/writing-to-innodb-reading-from-myisam/149532>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 25, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/writing-to-innodb-reading-from-myisam/149532 "2008-09-25T20:54:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![birdwatcher](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/76d3ee/32.png) [@birdwatcher](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/birdwatcher)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/writing-to-innodb-reading-from-myisam/149532/1 "2008-09-25T20:54:58Z")

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Hi -

We’re pondering whether this is possible or whether anyone else has  
done this. We would like to write records to an innodb database  
(master) but have the front-end of out app interface a myisam (slave)  
database. So have our app use two databases.

Reason is - we want to allow users to safely manage their records  
(transactions, row locking etc… via innodb) but want their records  
accessible ‘speedily’ via myisam.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![birdwatcher](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/76d3ee/32.png) [@birdwatcher](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/birdwatcher)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/writing-to-innodb-reading-from-myisam/149532/2 "2008-09-25T21:24:52Z")

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Hi,

Well, i haven’t tried it myself, but as far as the “High Performance  
MySQL” book can say, this is possible and there is nothing preventing  
you from doing it, you just have to be sure about the risks you will  
be taking, as even with replication, the slave database using MyISAM  
could get corrupted. Obviously this isn’t something common to happen,  
but it’s a possibility.

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 3:54 PM, birdwatcher  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> accessible ‘speedily’ via myisam.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any feedback!
> 
> >

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