MySQL 3.22 limits the table size to 4GB. Because MyISAM storage engine is used in MySQL 3.23, the maximum table size has increased to 65536 TB (2567–1byte). Because the allowed table size is larger, the maximum effective table size of MySQL database is usually determined by the file size limit of the operating system, not by the internal limit of MySQL.
The InnoDB storage engine saves the InnoDB table in a tablespace, which can be created by several files. In this way, the size of the table can exceed the maximum capacity of a single file. Tablespaces can contain raw disk partitions, which makes very large tables possible. The maximum capacity of a tablespace is 64TB.
The following table lists some examples of operating system file size limits. This is only a preliminary guide, not a final one. For the latest information, please refer to the documentation about the operating system.
operating system
File size limit
Linux 2.2- Intel 32 bit
2GB (LFS: 4GB)
Linux version 2.4 or above
(using ext3 file system) 4TB
Solaris 9/ 10
16TB
NetWare with NSS file system
8TB
win32 w/ FAT/FAT32
2GB/4GB
win32 w/ NTFS
2TB (possibly larger)
MacOS X with HFS+
2TB