Insert / deleting instead of insert if not exists or update. Hard disk usage.

[Daniel Fernandez]

Hi all,

I would appreciate much an advice about this issue. I have a logger table inside a mysql cluster that works as a buffer ring: It inserts one entry and immediately after it deletes an entry with the id = new_id-buffer_size.

This works well and is quite fast, more than checking if the row with an give id exists to update it or otherwise inserting it. When I explained the solution to the customer he said that this approach will cause the database in the hard disk grow indefinitely as we are inserting always and the deleting will create holes 'as a Swiss cheese', in his words, in the database.

Is it true? Is there any place I can document about this issue?

Thanks again,
Dani.