MySQL 5.1 partitions in practice

This article explains how to test the performance of a large database with MySQL 5.1, showing the advantages of using partitions.

The test database uses data published by the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Currently, the data consists of ~ 113 million records (7.5 GB data + 5.2 GB index).

The article continues at http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/testing-partitions-large-db.html