14.1.5 Turning Off InnoDB

Oracle recommends InnoDB as the preferred storage engine for typical database applications, from single-user wikis and blogs running on a local system, to high-end applications pushing the limits of performance. In MySQL 5.6, InnoDB is the default storage engine for new tables.

If you do not want to use InnoDB tables:

Start the server with the --innodb=OFF or --skip-innodb option to disable the InnoDB storage engine.
Note
As of MySQL 5.6.21, the --skip-innodb option still works but it is deprecated and returns a warning when used. Expect it to be removed in a future MySQL release. This also applies to its synonyms (--innodb=OFF, --disable-innodb, and so forth).
Because the default storage engine is InnoDB, the server cannot start unless you also use --default-storage-engine and --default-tmp-storage-engine to set the default to some other engine for both permanent and TEMPORARY tables.

To prevent the server from crashing when the InnoDB-related information_schema tables are queried, also disable the plugins associated with those tables. Specify in the [mysqld] section of the MySQL configuration file:

loose-innodb-trx=0
loose-innodb-locks=0
loose-innodb-lock-waits=0
loose-innodb-cmp=0
loose-innodb-cmp-per-index=0
loose-innodb-cmp-per-index-reset=0
loose-innodb-cmp-reset=0
loose-innodb-cmpmem=0
loose-innodb-cmpmem-reset=0
loose-innodb-buffer-page=0
loose-innodb-buffer-page-lru=0
loose-innodb-buffer-pool-stats=0
loose-innodb-metrics=0
loose-innodb-ft-default-stopword=0
loose-innodb-ft-inserted=0
loose-innodb-ft-deleted=0
loose-innodb-ft-being-deleted=0
loose-innodb-ft-config=0
loose-innodb-ft-index-cache=0
loose-innodb-ft-index-table=0
loose-innodb-sys-tables=0
loose-innodb-sys-tablestats=0
loose-innodb-sys-indexes=0
loose-innodb-sys-columns=0
loose-innodb-sys-fields=0
loose-innodb-sys-foreign=0
loose-innodb-sys-foreign-cols=0