If a table fits almost entirely in main memory, the fastest way to perform queries on it is to use hash indexes. InnoDB has a mechanism that monitors index searches made to the indexes defined for a table. If InnoDB notices that queries could benefit from building a hash index, it does so automatically.
The hash index is always built based on an existing B-tree index on the table. InnoDB can build a hash index on a prefix of any length of the key defined for the B-tree, depending on the pattern of searches that InnoDB observes for the B-tree index. A hash index can be partial: It is not required that the whole B-tree index is cached in the buffer pool. InnoDB builds hash indexes on demand for those pages of the index that are often accessed.
In a sense, InnoDB tailors itself through the adaptive hash index mechanism to ample main memory, coming closer to the architecture of main-memory databases.
The configuration parameter innodb_adaptive_hash_index can be set to disable or enable the adaptive hash index. See Section 8.3.4, “Dynamically Changing innodb_adaptive_hash_index” for details.
2、hash index
哈希（hash）是一种非常快的查找方法，一般情况下查找的时间复杂度为O（1），常用于连接（join）操作，如SQL Server和Oracle中的哈希连接（hash join）。但是SQL Server和Oracle等常见的数据库并不支持哈希索引（hash index）。MySQL的Heap存储引擎默认的索引类型为哈希，而InnoDB存储引擎提出了另一种实现方法，自适应哈希索引（adaptive hash index）
3、自适应哈希
InnoDB存储引擎会监控对表上索引的查找，如果观察到建立哈希索引可以带来速度的提升，则建立哈希索引，所以称之为自适应（adaptive） 的。自适应哈希索引通过缓冲池的B+树构造而来，因此建立的速度很快。而且不需要将整个表都建哈希索引，InnoDB存储引擎会自动根据访问的频率和模式 来为某些页建立哈希索引。
根据InnoDB的官方文档显示，启用自适应哈希索引后，读取和写入速度可以提高2倍；对于辅助索引的连接操作，性能可以提高5倍。在我看来，自适应哈希索引是非常好的优化模式，其设计思想是数据库自优化（self-tuning），即无需DBA对数据库进行调整。
Adaptive Hash Index是针对B+树Search Path的优化，因此所有会涉及到Search Path的操作，均可使用此Hash索引进行优化，这些可优化的操作包括：Unique Scan/Range Scan(Locate First Key Page)/Insert/Delete/Purge等等，几乎涵盖InnoDB所有的操作类型
Adaptive，意味着不是所有的叶页面都会以Hash索引维护，叶页面进入Hash 索引的条件是：同种类型的操作(Scan/Insert…)，命中同一叶页面的次数，超过此页面记录数量的1/16，则可将当前叶页面加入Hash索引， 用以优化后续可能的相同Search Path。
mysql> show engine innodb status \G ------------------------------------- INSERT BUFFER AND ADAPTIVE HASH INDEX ------------------------------------- Ibuf: size 1, free list len 0, seg size 2, 0 merges merged operations: insert 0, delete mark 0, delete 0 discarded operations: insert 0, delete mark 0, delete 0 Hash table size 553229, node heap has 17 buffer(s) 0.00 hash searches/s, 0.00 non-hash searches/s mysql> show variables like '%adaptive_hash%'; +----------------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +----------------------------+-------+ | innodb_adaptive_hash_index | ON | +----------------------------+-------+
不过我们可以通过参数innodb_adaptive_hash_index来禁用或启动此特性，默认为开启