Handling large BLOB/TEXT data efficiently in MySQL
Jul 02, 2025 pm 03:30 PMMySQL is prone to encounter performance bottlenecks when processing large-capacity BLOB and TEXT data, and requires a variety of optimization strategies. 1. Avoid frequent query of large fields, only specify field name query when needed or split large fields into separate tables and associate with foreign keys. 2. Choose the appropriate field type according to actual needs, such as TINYTEXT, MEDIUMTEXT or VARCHAR, to avoid blindly using the maximum capacity type. 3. Pay attention to the performance impact of temporary tables and sorting, avoid sorting or grouping large fields, use overwrite index or summary fields instead, and adjust memory parameters appropriately. 4. Use compression and external storage appropriately, enable InnoDB line compression to save space or store large files in the file system, the database only saves paths or reference IDs, and adjusts the log file size as needed.
When MySQL handles large-capacity BLOB and TEXT data, it is indeed easy to encounter performance bottlenecks or resource waste. If you operate these fields frequently, it is not enough to rely on the default settings and general usage alone. Let’s start from several practical usage scenarios and talk about how to deal with it more efficiently.

1. Avoid frequent query of large fields
When you have a table containing fields like LONGTEXT
or LONGBLOB
, pulling them out every time SELECT will significantly slow down the query speed, especially when these fields are very large (such as JSON, HTML, or even image binary storage).

suggestion:
- Query these fields only when you really need it, such as by specifying the field name instead of using
SELECT *
. - Split the large field into another table and associate it with foreign keys so that the main table remains lightweight and only JOIN to get detailed content if necessary.
For example:

-- SELECT * FROM articles WHERE id = 123; -- Recommended SELECT id, title, author FROM articles WHERE id = 123;
2. Reasonably select field types
Many people use TEXT
or BLOB
directly as soon as they start. In fact, MySQL provides a variety of subdivision types, such as TINYTEXT
, MEDIUMTEXT
, and LONGTEXT
. Each corresponding maximum length is different and the storage space is also different.
suggestion:
- Choose the most suitable type according to actual needs and do not blindly use the maximum capacity.
- If you just store text within a few K, using
VARCHAR(65535)
may be more appropriate thanTEXT
, because in some casesVARCHAR
can exist in the line, andTEXT
is always stored externally.
Different types of maximum capacity reference:
- TINYTEXT: ~255 bytes
- TEXT: ~64KB
- MEDIUMTEXT: ~16MB
- LONGTEXT: ~4GB
3. Pay attention to the impact of temporary tables and sorting on performance
When your query involves large fields and uses ORDER BY, GROUP BY, DISTINCT and other operations, MySQL may create temporary tables. If the field is too large, it will cause the memory temporary table to be automatically converted into disk temporary tables, which will significantly degrade performance.
suggestion:
- Avoid sorting or grouping on large fields.
- If you have to do it, consider adding overwrite indexes or extracting summary fields (such as summary text, hash values) to sort them.
- Add
tmp_table_size
andmax_heap_table_size
parameters to keep the temporary table in memory as much as possible.
Common optimization methods include:
- Use redundant fields to sort instead of original large fields
- Leave the full-text search function to special search engines (such as Elasticsearch) to reduce the burden on MySQL
4. Use compression and external storage appropriately
If you really want to store very large data, such as text or binary files that are more than tens of MB, it may not be the best choice to put it directly in the database.
suggestion:
- Enable InnoDB's row compression (ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED) to save space.
- Consider placing large files in file system or object storage (such as S3), and only the path or reference ID is saved in the database.
- If you must store the database, remember to adjust
innodb_log_file_size
, otherwise the upper write may cause excessive log pressure.
Basically these commonly used methods. Although BLOB and TEXT look similar, the impact is quite different in actual use, especially in high concurrency or large data volume scenarios. If you are not careful, it will drag down the stability of the entire system.
The above is the detailed content of Handling large BLOB/TEXT data efficiently in MySQL. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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