What is the maximum length of data I can put in a BLOB column in MySQL?
158
votes
2^16 bytes, apparently. Also: "The maximum size of a BLOB or TEXT object is determined by its type, but the largest value you actually can transmit between the client and server is determined by the amount of available memory and the size of the communications buffers."
- Zabba
Take a look at stackoverflow.com/a/6766854/1358777
- Alwin Kesler
Incredibly, the Mysql docs do not directly provide this info. The closest I've found is the "Storage Required" formula which only implies the answer, once you compute it: "L + 2 bytes, where L < 2^16"
- Dogweather
3 Answers
260
votes
A BLOB can be 65535 bytes (64 KB) maximum.
If you need more consider using:
a
MEDIUMBLOBfor 16777215 bytes (16 MB)a
LONGBLOBfor 4294967295 bytes (4 GB).
See Storage Requirements for String Types for more info.
18
votes
May or may not be accurate, but according to this site: http://www.htmlite.com/mysql003.php.
BLOB A string with a maximum length of 65535 characters.
The MySQL manual says:
The maximum size of a BLOB or TEXT object is determined by its type, but the largest value you actually can transmit between the client and server is determined by the amount of available memory and the size of the communications buffers
I think the first site gets their answers from interpreting the MySQL manual, per http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/storage-requirements.html
