Remove InnoDB files (ibdata1 and iblog files) after migration to MyISAM

Question

I changed the only two InnoDB tables on a replication slave to MyISAM, so the slave now only has MyISAM tables.

Can I now remove the ibdata1 file completely?

Answer 1

In case you do not have a single InnoDB table, then yes, you can remove the ibdata file and the ib_logfile[01] files.

However, note:

• With MySQL 5.6 there are system InnoDB tables, which means you don't want to remove the InnoDB files ever.
• It is best done when the server is stopped.

Answer 2

The file ibdata1 is tablespace for the InnoDB Engine.If you remove it you will not be able to Start MySQL Server.

If you don't have InnoDB tables still you should not remove ibdata1 file.When you install MySQL ibdata1 is created by default with initial size of 10MB and has four types of information

1. Table Data
2. Table Indexes
3. MVCC (Multiversioning Concurrency Control) Data
4. Table Metadata
5. Double Write Buffer
6. Insert Buffer

Some times ibdata1 grows endlessly,In Case you need help on how to shrink ibdata1 size you can follow steps suggested by RolandoMySQLDBA On MySql - Clean ibdata1 .