Test procedures update 1.create myisam table like the followings. -- without partition CREATE TABLE `t1` ( `a` int(11) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`a`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM; -- with 1024 partition CREATE TABLE `t1` ( `a` int(11) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`a`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM PARTITION BY KEY (`a`) PARTITIONS 1024; 2.insert a record INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1); 3.execute mysqlslap like the followings mysqlslap --no-defaults --user=root --socket=/mysql/mariadb-gprof/mysql.sock --engine=myisam --concurrency=10 --iterations=3000 --create-schema=test --query="UPDATE t1 SET a = 3 WHERE a = 2" mysqlslap results -- without partition Benchmark Running for engine myisam Average number of seconds to run all queries: 0.005 seconds Minimum number of seconds to run all queries: 0.005 seconds Maximum number of seconds to run all queries: 0.015 seconds Number of clients running queries: 10 Average number of queries per client: 1 -- with 1024 partition Benchmark Running for engine myisam Average number of seconds to run all queries: 0.158 seconds Minimum number of seconds to run all queries: 0.149 seconds Maximum number of seconds to run all queries: 1.472 seconds Number of clients running queries: 10 Average number of queries per client: 1