disk-based
A kind of database that primarily organizes data on disk storage (hard drives or equivalent). Data is brought back and forth between disk and memory to be operated upon. It is the opposite of an in-memory database. Although InnoDB is disk-based, it also contains features such as the buffer pool, multiple buffer pool instances, and the adaptive hash index that allow certain kinds of workloads to work primarily from memory.
See also adaptive hash index.
See also buffer pool.
See also in-memory database.