Myisam Performance Optimization

mysql> show variables;

key_buffer_size – Very important if you use MyISAM tables. Set up to 30-40% of available memory if
you use MyISAM tables exclusively. Right size depends on amount of indexes, data size and workload
– remember MyISAM uses OS cache to cache the data so you need to leave memory for it as well, and data can be much larger than indexes in many cases.
Key_buffer - The key buffer is where MySQL caches index blocks for MyISAM tables. When a query
uses an index, MySQL checks if the index is in memory or not. Once the buffer is full, MySQL will make room for new data by replacing older data that hasn’t been used recently. Indexes are very important to database server performance that it’s hard to go wrong with making more room in memory for them.

key_buffer_size=128M

bulk_insert_buffer_size=32M

myisam_max_sort_buffer_size=8M

join_buffer_size=4M

max_allowed_packet=1M

query_cache_limit=4M

read_buffer_size=1M

read_rnd_buffer_size=2M

table_cache=128M

tmp_table_size=32M