Q:

MySQL: InnoDB or MyISAM Engine ::: which is better for lot of selects?

I have a huge file (~26 MB) with around 200 columns & 30000 records. I want to import it into a database (InnoDB Engine). I wont't be updating or deleting records ever. ALthough I will be querying a lot of records from the table with high complexity in where clause. Which table engine should i prefer for faster query response? Will it really make a lot of difference? 
PS: All my other tables use InnoDB.
Also How can I avoid manually creating a table with 200 columns and specifying the datatype for each of them. Most of the columns are float and few are varchar and date.

A:

Usually the answer to "which is faster, ISAM or innodb" would be ISAM 
But for best performance with a table which has very few updates you might want to have a look at Infobright's columnar db (which is integrated into mysql). 
However with only 30k rows you'll not see a significant difference between innodb, isam and infobright. 
OTOH, you really should have a long hard look at whether you really need 200 columns in a single table. I suspect that's not the case - and the schema is far more important in determining performance than the storage engine.

