innodb_read_io_threads missing on MySQL 5.1.69

Question

I have a production 64-bit MySQL DB server (version 5.1.69 - Source distribution) with 8 cores and 8 GB RAM, and I want it to fully utilize all cores and all available memory. I use InnoDB and I read that I should set the following in my.cnf configuration file:

innodb_read_io_threads          = 64
innodb_write_io_threads         = 64

From some reason, both variables don't exist. When I add them to the configuration file, MySQL fails to load. Moreover, the following query returns zero results:

show global variables like '%innodb_read_%';

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Answer 1

The InnoDB Plugin has been included in MySQL since version 5.1.38, but it has to be installed.

MySQL 5.5/5.6 has the new InnoDB Plugin installed by default. You could just upgrade to 5.5/5.6

If you really want to stay with MySQL 5.1.69, you can go to the MySQL Documentation on how to do the install of the InnoDB Plugin : http://dev.mysql.com/doc/innodb-plugin/1.0/en/innodb-plugin-installation-dynamic-posix.html

I wrote about this in the DBA StackExchange back in May 2012 : https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/18203/mysql-installing-innodb-plugin/18240#18240