How should I layout this database?

ETbyrne · 09-10-2008, 02:02 PM

I've been working on a social networking website that if things go well it could potentially get very large in the future so I've been thinking about how I should have the MySQL database(s) layed out. Here are my ideas.

(1) Have one database that stores all of the information in HUGE tables.

(2) Have two databases. One that stores information like user login details, front page articles, and other stuff like that. The Second one would be made up of separate tables for each user.

For example the user "evan" would have four (or more) tables in the database. Ex:

Code:

evan_comments
evan_photos
evan_albums
evan_groups

I'm looking for the best solution performance wise while keeping it as neat and scalable as possible. Any suggestions?