I've managed many non-trivial MySQL installations that didn't set file_per_table. I agree it is a step towards fixing the problem but can create potentially other issues.
Current shop is not running file_per_table, and has little reason to do so at ~30GB database file size. Still, dropping the table and not reclaiming any space was a rude awakening. Combine that the fact that storage was an AWS EBS sized pretty close to its limit (50GB). I could not perform two iterations of a test import without first rm'img the file. Lame.
Current shop is not running file_per_table, and has little reason to do so at ~30GB database file size. Still, dropping the table and not reclaiming any space was a rude awakening. Combine that the fact that storage was an AWS EBS sized pretty close to its limit (50GB). I could not perform two iterations of a test import without first rm'img the file. Lame.