updated question:
suppose the data I'm interested in is only those with field=1 and the actual ratio of data wheere field is 1 vs 0 is very small(eg. 1%)
in this case, would index the field benefit my select where field =1 query?
original question:
I have a int field that will have either 0 or 1 value, would indexing this field speed up select queries such as:
select * from xxx where field=1;
Generally speaking, no. A bi-state field doesn't speed up queries when indexed because you have to look at half the rows on average. You want your index entries to be selective - a given entry in the index should represent only a small percentage of the possible values (say, less than 10%, preferably into the fractions of a percent). Then using the index ignores most of the data in the table, which is what gives you a performance benefit.
Some DBMS support bitmap indexes. They can help, but you still run into the problem of selectivity.
The updated question says that the number of values with value 1 will be small (less than one percent); will an index give you a benefit now?
The answer is:
For those queries where you specify that the value is 1, then yes, an index on the column could provide a benefit, provided that the optimizer actually makes use of the index. You may need to tweak the DBMS to make it realize that the index is skewed in favour of using it with queries where the value is 1; this tends to be DBMS-specific, but updating statistics in various guises is the name of the game, possibly using hints in the SQL queries too. Of course, if the optimizer never uses the index, then it still provides no benefit - and the optimizer may decide that other indexes help it more in some way.
For those queries where the value is 0, the index should not be used. The chances are, though, the the DBMS will continue to maintain the index for the 0 values too - even though it should never use them. It would be an unusual DBMS that could be commanded 'only index this column for the values other than zero', even though that would be very beneficial.
So - it depends. It depends on the queries, and it depends on the optimizer.
Note too that a composite index - on some other customarily used columns and then the bit-field may well provide some benefit. So, if you almost always select on a date range, then a composite index on the date and bit-field columns (probably in that order) should provide you with a good index.
Yes. But you may not want to take the consequent performance hit for updates for such a small field; if your rows are 50/50 0 or 1, a full table scan may still be reasonable.
It's true that the values are not unique so it has to scan over all the values and you do not get any performance improvement from binary searching.
However, there is something else to consider. If the database is large and does not fit in memory then it must load the data into memory before it can look through it. If there is an index that contains the data it may be much quicker to load just this index than the entire table. Probably depends on how many columns the table has.
Related
I've been using indexes on my MySQL databases for a while now but never properly learnt about them. Generally I put an index on any fields that I will be searching or selecting using a WHERE clause but sometimes it doesn't seem so black and white.
What are the best practices for MySQL indexes?
Example situations/dilemmas:
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should I index all of them or none of them?
What are the negative performance impacts of indexing?
If I have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should I index it?
You should definitely spend some time reading up on indexing, there's a lot written about it, and it's important to understand what's going on.
Broadly speaking, an index imposes an ordering on the rows of a table.
For simplicity's sake, imagine a table is just a big CSV file. Whenever a row is inserted, it's inserted at the end. So the "natural" ordering of the table is just the order in which rows were inserted.
Imagine you've got that CSV file loaded up in a very rudimentary spreadsheet application. All this spreadsheet does is display the data, and numbers the rows in sequential order.
Now imagine that you need to find all the rows that have some value "M" in the third column. Given what you have available, you have only one option. You scan the table checking the value of the third column for each row. If you've got a lot of rows, this method (a "table scan") can take a long time!
Now imagine that in addition to this table, you've got an index. This particular index is the index of values in the third column. The index lists all of the values from the third column, in some meaningful order (say, alphabetically) and for each of them, provides a list of row numbers where that value appears.
Now you have a good strategy for finding all the rows where the value of the third column is "M". For instance, you can perform a binary search! Whereas the table scan requires you to look N rows (where N is the number of rows), the binary search only requires that you look at log-n index entries, in the very worst case. Wow, that's sure a lot easier!
Of course, if you have this index, and you're adding rows to the table (at the end, since that's how our conceptual table works), you need to update the index each and every time. So you do a little more work while you're writing new rows, but you save a ton of time when you're searching for something.
So, in general, indexing creates a tradeoff between read efficiency and write efficiency. With no indexes, inserts can be very fast -- the database engine just adds a row to the table. As you add indexes, the engine must update each index while performing the insert.
On the other hand, reads become a lot faster.
Hopefully that covers your first two questions (as others have answered -- you need to find the right balance).
Your third scenario is a little more complicated. If you're using LIKE, indexing engines will typically help with your read speed up to the first "%". In other words, if you're SELECTing WHERE column LIKE 'foo%bar%', the database will use the index to find all the rows where column starts with "foo", and then need to scan that intermediate rowset to find the subset that contains "bar". SELECT ... WHERE column LIKE '%bar%' can't use the index. I hope you can see why.
Finally, you need to start thinking about indexes on more than one column. The concept is the same, and behaves similarly to the LIKE stuff -- essentially, if you have an index on (a,b,c), the engine will continue using the index from left to right as best it can. So a search on column a might use the (a,b,c) index, as would one on (a,b). However, the engine would need to do a full table scan if you were searching WHERE b=5 AND c=1)
Hopefully this helps shed a little light, but I must reiterate that you're best off spending a few hours digging around for good articles that explain these things in depth. It's also a good idea to read your particular database server's documentation. The way indices are implemented and used by query planners can vary pretty widely.
Check out presentations like More Mastering the Art of Indexing.
Update 12/2012: I have posted a new presentation of mine: How to Design Indexes, Really. I presented this in October 2012 at ZendCon in Santa Clara, and in December 2012 at Percona Live London.
Designing the best indexes is a process that has to match the queries you run in your app.
It's hard to recommend any general-purpose rules about which columns are best to index, or whether you should index all columns, no columns, which indexes should span multiple columns, etc. It depends on the queries you need to run.
Yes, there is some overhead so you shouldn't create indexes needlessly. But you should create the indexes that give benefit to the queries you need to run quickly. The overhead of an index is usually far outweighed by its benefit.
For a column that is VARCHAR(2500), you probably want to use a FULLTEXT index or a prefix index:
CREATE INDEX i ON SomeTable(longVarchar(100));
Note that a conventional index can't help if you're searching for words that may be in the middle of that long varchar. For that, use a fulltext index.
I won't repeat some of the good advice in other answers, but will add:
Compound Indices
You can create compound indices - an index that includes multiple columns. MySQL can use these from left to right. So if you have:
Table A
Id
Name
Category
Age
Description
if you have a compound index that includes Name/Category/Age in that order, these WHERE clauses would use the index:
WHERE Name='Eric' and Category='A'
WHERE Name='Eric' and Category='A' and Age > 18
but
WHERE Category='A' and Age > 18
would not use that index because everything has to be used from left to right.
Explain
Use Explain / Explain Extended to understand what indices are available to MySQL and which one it actually selects. MySQL will only use ONE key per query.
EXPLAIN EXTENDED SELECT * from Table WHERE Something='ABC'
Slow Query Log
Turn on the slow query log to see which queries are running slow.
Wide Columns
If you have a wide column where MOST of the distinction happens in the first several characters, you can use only the first N characters in your index. Example: We have a ReferenceNumber column defined as varchar(255) but 97% of the cases, the reference number is 10 characters or less. I changed the index to only look at the first 10 characters and improved performance quite a bit.
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should i index all of them or none of them
Are you searching on a field by field basis or are some searches using multiple fields?
Which fields are most being searched on?
What are the field types? (Index works better on INTs than on VARCHARs for example)
Have you tried using EXPLAIN on the queries that are being run?
What are the negetive performance impacts of indexing
UPDATEs and INSERTs will be slower. There's also the extra storage space requirments, but that's usual unimportant these days.
If i have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should i index it
No, unless it's UNIQUE (which means it's already indexed) or you only search for exact matches on that field (not using LIKE or mySQL's fulltext search).
Generally I put an index on any fields that i will be searching or selecting using a WHERE clause
I'd normally index the fields that are the most queried, and then INTs/BOOLEANs/ENUMs rather that fields that are VARCHARS. Don't forget, often you need to create an index on combined fields, rather than an index on an individual field. Use EXPLAIN, and check the slow log.
Load Data Efficiently: Indexes speed up retrievals but slow down inserts and deletes, as well as updates of values in indexed columns. That is, indexes slow down most operations that involve writing. This occurs because writing a row requires writing not only the data row, it requires changes to any indexes as well. The more indexes a table has, the more changes need to be made, and the greater the average performance degradation. Most tables receive many reads and few writes, but for a table with a high percentage of writes, the cost of index updating might be significant.
Avoid Indexes: If you don’t need a particular index to help queries perform better, don’t create it.
Disk Space: An index takes up disk space, and multiple indexes take up correspondingly more space. This might cause you to reach a table size limit more quickly than if there are no indexes. Avoid indexes wherever possible.
Takeaway: Don't over index
In general, indices help speedup database search, having the disadvantage of using extra disk space and slowing INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE queries. Use EXPLAIN and read the results to find out when MySQL uses your indices.
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should i index all of them or none of them?
Indexing all six columns isn't always the best practice.
(a) Are you going to use any of those columns when searching for specific information?
(b) What is the selectivity of those columns (how many distinct values are there stored, in comparison to the total amount of records on the table)?
MySQL uses a cost-based optimizer, which tries to find the "cheapest" path when performing a query. And fields with low selectivity aren't good candidates.
What are the negetive performance impacts of indexing?
Already answered: extra disk space, lower performance during insert - update - delete.
If i have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should i index it?
Try the FULLTEXT Index.
1/2) Indexes speed up certain select operations but they slow down other operations like insert, update and deletes. It can be a fine balance.
3) use a full text index or perhaps sphinx
I have a field table_name in a table which can have only 20 different values. The total records in the table is about few tens of thousands of rows. If I do a query like this:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE table_name = 'adasd';
at most the returned records are 25% of the total rows. Mostly I get only 10% of the total records. Is there a scope to index the field table_name here? I hear that for indexes to work well it requires the values in that field to be unique or close to it. In my case, its not at all close to unique. But I also heard that if the returned rows are less in number compared to total number of rows, it makes a good case for indexing.
How should I go about this?
No they don't have to be unique to get a benefit from using indexes, however take some time to think about what the DBMS does when processing a query:
Full table scan - a sequential read through the data (i.e. very few seek operations)
Index lookup - a few seeks on the index to find the start of the selected data, then a sequential read (few seeks) to identify rows in the underlying table, then LOTS AND LOTS of seeks to fetch the rows from the table
Seeks are expensive.
(there is a secondary effect of full table scans in that they are more prone to flushing hot data out of the cache - but you should address the primary concern first).
In this case, it's unlikely that the DBMS would use the index if it were present, and even if it did, it would probably be slower than a full table scan. As a (very) rough rule of thumb, you're only going to get a benefit from an index if a predicate identifies less than around 5% of the rows (but it will vary depending on the relative size of the index and the data).
i.e. don't bother adding an index on this field alone.
I think you may benefit from spending some time thinking about why you need to run queries which return so many rows?
Revised Answer
I just learned that creating an index does not mean that MySQL will use it. Keeping that in mind, I will re-phrase my answer:
You should create an index on that column if (general or your own) practices suggest you to do so. MySQL will use heuristics; which include looking at the available indexes and their respective cardinality, to determine the best index to use or not to use an index at all.
Interesting reading about this topic here.
Indexes are used to find rows with specific column values quickly. Without an index, MySQL must begin with the first row and then read through the entire table to find the relevant rows.
Says our beloved MySQL manual.
In that case, why don't just index every column?
And since I have this feeling that it would be a bigger hit to performance, when should we use indexes/best practices for indexes?
Thanks in advance!
Creating an index always comes at a cost: The more indices you have on a table, the more expensive it is to modify that table (i.e. inserts, updates and deletes take longer).
In turn, queries that can use the indices will be faster. It's a classical tradeoff. On most tables a small number of commonly used indices is worth the cost, because queries happen often enough (or their performance is much more important than the modification performance).
On the other hand, if you have some kind of log table that is updated very often, but queried only very rarely (for example in case of a catastrophic failure), then adding an index would add a big cost and provide very little advantage.
Also: whether or not an index is useful depends a lot on the exact query to be executed. It's possible that you have indices spanning each column, but the query can't use it because the indices are in the wrong order, have the wrong information or the wrong format. So not all indices help all queries.
By your logic, you wouldn't index just every column, but every permutation of every column. The overhead involved in storing this information, and in keeping it up to date, would be utterly vast.
Generally index is helpful if it has a good selectivity, i.e. when the query selects a little portion of data based on the value (or range) of indexed attribute.
Also indice are good for merge joins, when sorting rows by a joining attribute in both joined tables allows to match rows and retrieve data in one pass.
As it was already mentioned, indexes slow down updates and take up some memory (which, by itself, slows down performance as well)
I've been using indexes on my MySQL databases for a while now but never properly learnt about them. Generally I put an index on any fields that I will be searching or selecting using a WHERE clause but sometimes it doesn't seem so black and white.
What are the best practices for MySQL indexes?
Example situations/dilemmas:
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should I index all of them or none of them?
What are the negative performance impacts of indexing?
If I have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should I index it?
You should definitely spend some time reading up on indexing, there's a lot written about it, and it's important to understand what's going on.
Broadly speaking, an index imposes an ordering on the rows of a table.
For simplicity's sake, imagine a table is just a big CSV file. Whenever a row is inserted, it's inserted at the end. So the "natural" ordering of the table is just the order in which rows were inserted.
Imagine you've got that CSV file loaded up in a very rudimentary spreadsheet application. All this spreadsheet does is display the data, and numbers the rows in sequential order.
Now imagine that you need to find all the rows that have some value "M" in the third column. Given what you have available, you have only one option. You scan the table checking the value of the third column for each row. If you've got a lot of rows, this method (a "table scan") can take a long time!
Now imagine that in addition to this table, you've got an index. This particular index is the index of values in the third column. The index lists all of the values from the third column, in some meaningful order (say, alphabetically) and for each of them, provides a list of row numbers where that value appears.
Now you have a good strategy for finding all the rows where the value of the third column is "M". For instance, you can perform a binary search! Whereas the table scan requires you to look N rows (where N is the number of rows), the binary search only requires that you look at log-n index entries, in the very worst case. Wow, that's sure a lot easier!
Of course, if you have this index, and you're adding rows to the table (at the end, since that's how our conceptual table works), you need to update the index each and every time. So you do a little more work while you're writing new rows, but you save a ton of time when you're searching for something.
So, in general, indexing creates a tradeoff between read efficiency and write efficiency. With no indexes, inserts can be very fast -- the database engine just adds a row to the table. As you add indexes, the engine must update each index while performing the insert.
On the other hand, reads become a lot faster.
Hopefully that covers your first two questions (as others have answered -- you need to find the right balance).
Your third scenario is a little more complicated. If you're using LIKE, indexing engines will typically help with your read speed up to the first "%". In other words, if you're SELECTing WHERE column LIKE 'foo%bar%', the database will use the index to find all the rows where column starts with "foo", and then need to scan that intermediate rowset to find the subset that contains "bar". SELECT ... WHERE column LIKE '%bar%' can't use the index. I hope you can see why.
Finally, you need to start thinking about indexes on more than one column. The concept is the same, and behaves similarly to the LIKE stuff -- essentially, if you have an index on (a,b,c), the engine will continue using the index from left to right as best it can. So a search on column a might use the (a,b,c) index, as would one on (a,b). However, the engine would need to do a full table scan if you were searching WHERE b=5 AND c=1)
Hopefully this helps shed a little light, but I must reiterate that you're best off spending a few hours digging around for good articles that explain these things in depth. It's also a good idea to read your particular database server's documentation. The way indices are implemented and used by query planners can vary pretty widely.
Check out presentations like More Mastering the Art of Indexing.
Update 12/2012: I have posted a new presentation of mine: How to Design Indexes, Really. I presented this in October 2012 at ZendCon in Santa Clara, and in December 2012 at Percona Live London.
Designing the best indexes is a process that has to match the queries you run in your app.
It's hard to recommend any general-purpose rules about which columns are best to index, or whether you should index all columns, no columns, which indexes should span multiple columns, etc. It depends on the queries you need to run.
Yes, there is some overhead so you shouldn't create indexes needlessly. But you should create the indexes that give benefit to the queries you need to run quickly. The overhead of an index is usually far outweighed by its benefit.
For a column that is VARCHAR(2500), you probably want to use a FULLTEXT index or a prefix index:
CREATE INDEX i ON SomeTable(longVarchar(100));
Note that a conventional index can't help if you're searching for words that may be in the middle of that long varchar. For that, use a fulltext index.
I won't repeat some of the good advice in other answers, but will add:
Compound Indices
You can create compound indices - an index that includes multiple columns. MySQL can use these from left to right. So if you have:
Table A
Id
Name
Category
Age
Description
if you have a compound index that includes Name/Category/Age in that order, these WHERE clauses would use the index:
WHERE Name='Eric' and Category='A'
WHERE Name='Eric' and Category='A' and Age > 18
but
WHERE Category='A' and Age > 18
would not use that index because everything has to be used from left to right.
Explain
Use Explain / Explain Extended to understand what indices are available to MySQL and which one it actually selects. MySQL will only use ONE key per query.
EXPLAIN EXTENDED SELECT * from Table WHERE Something='ABC'
Slow Query Log
Turn on the slow query log to see which queries are running slow.
Wide Columns
If you have a wide column where MOST of the distinction happens in the first several characters, you can use only the first N characters in your index. Example: We have a ReferenceNumber column defined as varchar(255) but 97% of the cases, the reference number is 10 characters or less. I changed the index to only look at the first 10 characters and improved performance quite a bit.
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should i index all of them or none of them
Are you searching on a field by field basis or are some searches using multiple fields?
Which fields are most being searched on?
What are the field types? (Index works better on INTs than on VARCHARs for example)
Have you tried using EXPLAIN on the queries that are being run?
What are the negetive performance impacts of indexing
UPDATEs and INSERTs will be slower. There's also the extra storage space requirments, but that's usual unimportant these days.
If i have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should i index it
No, unless it's UNIQUE (which means it's already indexed) or you only search for exact matches on that field (not using LIKE or mySQL's fulltext search).
Generally I put an index on any fields that i will be searching or selecting using a WHERE clause
I'd normally index the fields that are the most queried, and then INTs/BOOLEANs/ENUMs rather that fields that are VARCHARS. Don't forget, often you need to create an index on combined fields, rather than an index on an individual field. Use EXPLAIN, and check the slow log.
Load Data Efficiently: Indexes speed up retrievals but slow down inserts and deletes, as well as updates of values in indexed columns. That is, indexes slow down most operations that involve writing. This occurs because writing a row requires writing not only the data row, it requires changes to any indexes as well. The more indexes a table has, the more changes need to be made, and the greater the average performance degradation. Most tables receive many reads and few writes, but for a table with a high percentage of writes, the cost of index updating might be significant.
Avoid Indexes: If you don’t need a particular index to help queries perform better, don’t create it.
Disk Space: An index takes up disk space, and multiple indexes take up correspondingly more space. This might cause you to reach a table size limit more quickly than if there are no indexes. Avoid indexes wherever possible.
Takeaway: Don't over index
In general, indices help speedup database search, having the disadvantage of using extra disk space and slowing INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE queries. Use EXPLAIN and read the results to find out when MySQL uses your indices.
If a table has six columns and all of them are searchable, should i index all of them or none of them?
Indexing all six columns isn't always the best practice.
(a) Are you going to use any of those columns when searching for specific information?
(b) What is the selectivity of those columns (how many distinct values are there stored, in comparison to the total amount of records on the table)?
MySQL uses a cost-based optimizer, which tries to find the "cheapest" path when performing a query. And fields with low selectivity aren't good candidates.
What are the negetive performance impacts of indexing?
Already answered: extra disk space, lower performance during insert - update - delete.
If i have a VARCHAR 2500 column which is searchable from parts of my site, should i index it?
Try the FULLTEXT Index.
1/2) Indexes speed up certain select operations but they slow down other operations like insert, update and deletes. It can be a fine balance.
3) use a full text index or perhaps sphinx
I need to add indexes to my table (columns) and stumbled across this post:
How many database indexes is too many?
Quote:
“Having said that, you can clearly add a lot of pointless indexes to a table that won't do anything. Adding B-Tree indexes to a column with 2 distinct values will be pointless since it doesn't add anything in terms of looking the data up. The more unique the values in a column, the more it will benefit from an index.”
Is an Index really pointless if there are only two distinct values? Given a table as follows (MySQL Database, InnoDB)
Id (BIGINT)
fullname (VARCHAR)
address (VARCHAR)
status (VARCHAR)
Further conditions:
The Database contains 300 Million records
Status can only be “enabled” and “disabled”
150 Million records have status= enabled and 150 Million records have
stauts= disabled
My understanding is, without having an index on status, a select with where status=’enabled’ would result in a full tablescan with 300 Million Records to process?
How efficient is the lookup when I use a BTREE index on status?
Should I index this column or not?
What alternatives (maybe any other indexes) does MySQL InnoDB provide to efficiently look records up by the "where status="enabled" clause in the given example with a very low cardinality/selectivity of the values?
The index that you describe is pretty much pointless. An index is best used when you need to select a small number of rows in comparison to the total rows.
The reason for this is related to how a database accesses a table. Tables can be assessed either by a full table scan, where each block is read and processed in turn. Or by a rowid or key lookup, where the database has a key/rowid and reads the exact row it requires.
In the case where you use a where clause based on the primary key or another unique index, eg. where id = 1, the database can use the index to get an exact reference to where the row's data is stored. This is clearly more efficient than doing a full table scan and processing every block.
Now back to your example, you have a where clause of where status = 'enabled', the index will return 150m rows and the database will have to read each row in turn using separate small reads. Whereas accessing the table with a full table scan allows the database to make use of more efficient larger reads.
There is a point at which it is better to just do a full table scan rather than use the index. With mysql you can use FORCE INDEX (idx_name) as part of your query to allow comparisons between each table access method.
Reference:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/how-to-avoid-table-scan.html
I'm sorry to say that I do not agree with Mike. Adding an index is meant to limit the amount of full records searches for MySQL, thereby limiting IO which usually is the bottleneck.
This indexing is not free; you pay for it on inserts/updates when the index has to be updated and in the search itself, as it now needs to load the index file (full text index for 300M records is probably not in memory). So it might well be that you get extra IO in stead of limitting it.
I do agree with the statement that a binary variable is best stored as one, a bool or tinyint, as that decreases the length of a row and can thereby limit disk IO, also comparisons on numbers are faster.
If you need speed and you seldom use the disabled records, you may wish to have 2 tables, one for enabled and one for disabled records and move the records when the status changes. As it increases complexity and risk this would be my very last choice of course. Definitely do the move in 1 transaction if you happen to go for it.
It just popped into my head that you can check wether an index is actually used by using the explain statement. That should show you how MySQL is optimizing the query. I don't really know hoe MySQL optimizes queries, but from postgresql I do know that you should explain a query on a database approximately the same (in size and data) as the real database. So if you have a copy on the database, create an index on the table and see wether it's actually used. As I said, I doubt it, but I most definitely don't know everything:)
If the data is distributed like 50:50 then query like where status="enabled" will avoid half scanning of the table.
Having index on such tables is completely depends on distribution of data, i,e : if entries having status enabled is 90% and other is 10%. and for query where status="disabled" it scans only 10% of the table.
so having index on such columns depends on distribution of data.
#a'r answer is correct, however it needs to be pointed out that the usefulness of an index is given not only by its cardinality but also by the distribution of data and the queries run on the database.
In OP's case, with 150M records having status='enabled' and 150M having status='disabled', the index is unnecessary and a waste of resource.
In case of 299M records having status='enabled' and 1M having status='disabled', the index is useful (and will be used) in queries of type SELECT ... where status='disabled'.
Queries of type SELECT ... where status='enabled' will still run with a full table scan.
You will hardly need all 150 mln records at once, so I guess "status" will always be used in conjunction with other columns. Perhaps it'd make more sense to use a compound index like (status, fullname)
Jan, you should definitely index that column. I'm not sure of the context of the quote, but everything you said above is correct. Without an index on that column, you are most certainly doing a table scan on 300M rows, which is about the worst you can do for that data.
Jan, as asked, where your query involves simply "where status=enabled" without some other limiting factor, an index on that column apparently won't help (glad to SO community showed me what's up). If however, there is a limiting factor, such as "limit 10" an index may help. Also, remember that indexes are also used in group by and order by optimizations. If you are doing "select count(*),status from table group by status", an index would be helpful.
You should also consider converting status to a tinyint where 0 would represent disabled and 1 would be enabled. You're wasting tons of space storing that string vs. a tinyint which only requires 1 byte per row!
I have a similar column in my MySQL database. Approximately 4 million rows, with the distribution of 90% 1 and 10% 0.
I've just discovered today that my queries (where column = 1) actually run significantly faster WITHOUT the index.
Foolishly I deleted the index. I say foolishly, because I now suspect the queries (where column = 0) may have still benefited from it. So, instead I should explicitly tell MySQL to ignore the index when I'm searching for 1, and to use it when I'm searching for 0. Maybe.