Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China.

RDS for MariaDB limitations

Following are important limitations of using RDS for MariaDB.

MariaDB file size limits in Amazon RDS

For MariaDB DB instances, the maximum size of a table is 16 TB when using InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces. This limit also constrains the system tablespace to a maximum size of 16 TB. InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces (with tables each in their own tablespace) are set by default for MariaDB DB instances. This limit isn't related to the maximum storage limit for MariaDB DB instances. For more information about the storage limit, see Amazon RDS DB instance storage.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces, depending on your application. To determine the best approach for your application, see File-per-table tablespaces in the MySQL documentation.

We don't recommend allowing tables to grow to the maximum file size. In general, a better practice is to partition data into smaller tables, which can improve performance and recovery times.

One option that you can use for breaking a large table up into smaller tables is partitioning. Partitioning distributes portions of your large table into separate files based on rules that you specify. For example, if you store transactions by date, you can create partitioning rules that distribute older transactions into separate files using partitioning. Then periodically, you can archive the historical transaction data that doesn't need to be readily available to your application. For more information, see Partitioning in the MySQL documentation.

To determine the file size of a table

Use the following SQL command to determine if any of your tables are too large and are candidates for partitioning. To update table statistics, issue an ANALYZE TABLE command on each table. For more information, see ANALYZE TABLE statement in the MySQL documentation.

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, 
    round(((DATA_LENGTH + INDEX_LENGTH) / 1024 / 1024), 2) As "Approximate size (MB)", DATA_FREE 
    FROM information_schema.TABLES
    WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA NOT IN ('mysql', 'information_schema', 'performance_schema'); 

To enable InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces

To disable InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces

For information on updating a parameter group, see Working with parameter groups.

When you have enabled or disabled InnoDB file-per-table tablespaces, you can issue an ALTER TABLE command. You can use this command to move a table from the global tablespace to its own tablespace. Or you can move a table from its own tablespace to the global tablespace. Following is an example.

ALTER TABLE table_name ENGINE=InnoDB, ALGORITHM=COPY; 

InnoDB reserved word

InnoDB is a reserved word for RDS for MariaDB. You can't use this name for a MariaDB database.