Why ibdata1 is still growing when I have used innodb_file_per_table in MySQL 5.1

Question

All my table in the db are created after I enabled the option "innodb_file_per_table", so I don't understand why ibdata1 is still growing from time to time, even with a very slow speed.

Answer 1

I have the complete solution for how to clean up your innodb infrastructure permanently !!!

I actually solved this question long ago and had this accepted in StackOverflow. Please read this in its entirety, because I performed these steps for my company's clients dozens of times without incident. This will also keep ibdata1 as dirt small as possible. I guarantee it !!!

I also addressed this in a question in ServerFault.

Answer 2

When you use file_per_table, it doesn't mean that ibdata* isn't used at all. There will still be stored "meta-data" for all your InnoDB tables ... Only the data itself goes to the other files