Posted by daph2001 on December 20, 2009 at 7:30am
I have got a multisite installation with a separate database for every site.
The sites are unrelated and don't share any data.
However I figured some administration tasks such as database backup and database duplication (which I usually do on core upgrade...) would be easier if I just used one website with different table prefixes.
Are there any drawbacks for that? Is there a reason to stick to one database?
Thanks & happy holidays.
Comments
With multiple databases, you
With multiple databases, you can more easily backup, repair and restore the data for each site separately, so if one of your site's databases gets messed up somehow, only that site needs to go down for the count while things are restored (and in the case where you have an old backup or no backup at all, you'll only lose data on one site).
There's also security implications; if one of your databases gets h4x0red, the amount of data the thieves can steal will more likely be limited to the data for just one site instead of all of them, especially if each of your databases is using a separate account (username and password).
For hobbyists for who data integrity and security are not essential, taking the table prefixing approach can be acceptable, but for just about everyone else, I'd recommend it being a last resort if the ability to use independent databases is available.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
Thanks for the reply
I think I'll stick to the multiple DB configuration...
performance / future scalability
performance / future scalability are also a hell of a lot harder if you lock yourself into a 1db / multi-db relationship
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
Drupal Multisite with One Database
We just wanted a separate sub-site for the company blog, so although we wanted a unique url and theme, we really didn't want to maintain a separate Drupal install. Here is a link to how we went about it Drupal Multisite with one database.