SHOW [STORAGE] ENGINES

SHOW ENGINES displays status information about the server's storage engines. This is particularly useful for checking whether a storage engine is supported, or to see what the default engine is. This statement is implemented in MySQL 4.1.2. SHOW TABLE TYPES is a synonym, but is deprecated and is removed in MySQL 5.5.

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Engine: MyISAM
Support: DEFAULT
Comment: Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance
*************************** 2. row ***************************
Engine: HEAP
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for MEMORY
*************************** 3. row ***************************
Engine: MEMORY
Support: YES
Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables
*************************** 4. row ***************************
Engine: MERGE
Support: YES
Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
*************************** 5. row ***************************
Engine: MRG_MYISAM
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for MERGE
*************************** 6. row ***************************
Engine: ISAM
Support: NO
Comment: Obsolete storage engine, now replaced by MyISAM
*************************** 7. row ***************************
Engine: MRG_ISAM
Support: NO
Comment: Obsolete storage engine, now replaced by MERGE
*************************** 8. row ***************************
Engine: InnoDB
Support: YES
Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys
*************************** 9. row ***************************
Engine: INNOBASE
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for INNODB
*************************** 10. row ***************************
Engine: BDB
Support: YES
Comment: Supports transactions and page-level locking
*************************** 11. row ***************************
Engine: BERKELEYDB
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for BDB
*************************** 12. row ***************************
Engine: NDBCLUSTER
Support: NO
Comment: Clustered, fault-tolerant, memory-based tables
*************************** 13. row ***************************
Engine: NDB
Support: NO
Comment: Alias for NDBCLUSTER
*************************** 14. row ***************************
Engine: EXAMPLE
Support: NO
Comment: Example storage engine
*************************** 15. row ***************************
Engine: ARCHIVE
Support: NO
Comment: Archive storage engine
*************************** 16. row ***************************
Engine: CSV
Support: NO
Comment: CSV storage engine
*************************** 17. row ***************************
Engine: BLACKHOLE
Support: NO
Comment: Storage engine designed to act as null storage

The Support value indicates whether the particular storage engine is supported, and which is the default engine. For example, if the server is started with the --default-table-type=InnoDB option, the Support value for the InnoDB row has the value DEFAULT. See Chapter 13, Storage Engines.

All MySQL servers beginning with the 3.23 release series support MyISAM tables, because MyISAM is the default storage engine.