Disable keys while altering table?

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

Altering a table, lets say xf_post, with millions of rows might take some time. And disabling keys before the alter reduces the execution time.

Though I haven't tested it as I don't have such board to test on Do any of you have any experience with this? Does it have any side effect?

 

[Paul B]

Mike has suggested it in the past.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/very-slow-search-index-rebuild.69728/#post-729438

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/restart-the-import-from-scratch.23544/#post-290780

The issue is the query to enable keys will itself take some time to run.

 

[Mr. Goodie2Shoes]

What about the overall execution time? Disabling keys wont be of any help if the overall execution time is more or less the same...

 

[Paul B]

You would have to do some testing to check.