MySQL datatypes We all might have gone through the confusion of choosing among the different string related datatypes for data storage, and so have I, many a times. Thus here I have compiled all the info that I had, got and could gather into a single post so as to give a better understanding of things which need to be factored while much such critical decisions. As we all are aware that the following are the string data-types that are supported by MySQL CHAR VARCHAR BINARY VARBINARY BLOB TEXT ENUM and SET . Just for your reference I have put hyperlinks for the corresponding mysql manual doc page. I have divided the post into 4 sets, each discussing about the two datatypes, and how to choose between them CHAR/VARCHAR BINARY/VARBINARY BLOB/TEXT ENUM/SET and in section with BLOB and TEXT we discuss about the things should be considered when deciding between all the the first 6 dataypes. We will start with discussing about their basic propeties