Which is faster: multiple single INSERTs or one multiple-row INSERT?

mysql insert benchmarking
dusoft picture dusoft · Nov 24, 2009 · Viewed 103.3k times · Source

I am trying to optimize one part of my code that inserts data into MySQL. Should I chain INSERTs to make one huge multiple-row INSERT or are multiple separate INSERTs faster?

Answer

mbarkhau picture mbarkhau · Nov 24, 2009

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/insert-optimization.html

The time required for inserting a row is determined by the following factors, where the numbers indicate approximate proportions:

  • Connecting: (3)
  • Sending query to server: (2)
  • Parsing query: (2)
  • Inserting row: (1 × size of row)
  • Inserting indexes: (1 × number of indexes)
  • Closing: (1)

From this it should be obvious, that sending one large statement will save you an overhead of 7 per insert statement, which in further reading the text also says:

If you are inserting many rows from the same client at the same time, use INSERT statements with multiple VALUES lists to insert several rows at a time. This is considerably faster (many times faster in some cases) than using separate single-row INSERT statements.

Related questions

"INSERT IGNORE" vs "INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE"

While executing an INSERT statement with many rows, I want to skip duplicate entries that would otherwise cause failure. After some research, my options appear to be the use of either: ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE which implies an unnecessary update …

Read More
How to set initial value and auto increment in MySQL?

How do I set the initial value for an "id" column in a MySQL table that start from 1001? I want to do an insert "INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES ('{$name}', '{$email}')"; Without specifying the initial …

Read More
How to copy a row and insert in same table with a autoincrement field in MySQL?

In MySQL I am trying to copy a row with an autoincrement column ID=1 and insert the data into same table as a new row with column ID=2. How can I do this in a single query?

Read More