Home / server / Questions / 216180
Accepted
mhost
Asked: 2010-12-27 01:30:16 +0800 CST

mysql is not using multiple cpus

  • 772

Our MySQL server has been using a lot of CPU lately (it's reached 100% several times and stays there for a while) and I noticed that it the CPU load is all on one core of one cpu. I was hoping to spread that out to all 4 on my server.

I have been tweaking the MySQL settings to use more ram and less cpu, but it still occasionally reaches very high CPU usage.

It seems like everything about the topic refers to thread_concurrency (which I've read is a solaris only setting). What can I do in Linux?

Thanks.

performance mysql

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You are right, thread_concurrency is only for Solaris and it is deprecated in MySQL 5.6 onward. I don't think you can use multi cores/cpus with MyISAM. To fully utilize the hardware, use InnoDB.

    This might help you to understand things better.

    • 3

  2. The correct value for this variable is dependent on environment and workload. You will need to try a range of different values to determine what value works for your applications. A recommended value is 2 times the number of CPUs plus the number of disks.

    The range of this variable is 0 to 1000. A value of 20 or higher is interpreted as infinite concurrency before MySQL 5.0.19. From 5.0.19 on, you can disable thread concurrency checking by setting the value to 0. Disabling thread concurrency checking enables InnoDB to create as many threads as it needs.

    http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-parameters.html#sysvar_innodb_thread_concurrency

    • 2

  3. To keep it simple - each query executed in MySQL uses only 1 CPU core regardless of how multi-core the InnoDB engine is.

    All multi-core optimizations inside MySQL help when you have many different queries running at the same and demading for CPU and data, but if you have some big query which takes minutes / hours to complete, it will always use only 1 CPU core. (And if you must have such queries, you should buy servers with higher CPU speed and less number of cores.)

    • 1