"MEMORY tables use a fixed-length row-storage format. Variable-length types such as VARCHAR are stored using a fixed length." From - http://dev.mysql.com/doc/r

"MEMORY tables use a fixed-length row-storage format. Variable-length types such as VARCHAR are stored using a fixed length." From - http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/memory-storage-engine.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/memory-storage-engine... I had no idea about this either....