InnoDB vs MyIsam help me choose, Which Language setting to use?

[andrewmoir]

Hi there - 2 questions

1)
Have a simple laboratory setup, 5 machines pushing data once every couple of minutes into the database, and maximum of 20 users reading and updating data.  The database is a pure table with no dependencies or  foreign key restraints.

I realise that Innodb can roll back incomplete updates/transactions but if info from a machine does not push through correctly it is absolutely no train smash at all.  So what do you think  Is Innodb worth the extra overhead?  Should I stick with my first choice Isam?

2) Phpmyadmin lists my  MySQL charset: as  UTF-8 Unicode (utf8) 
I did a fresh install, then messed around with the    MySQL connection collation setting.
Its now set to UTF_unicode_ci  because I think that is what it was set to???

Is that the default setting? 
I don't have any difficult data, nor need use of special characters other than % and °. 
Would I speed things up by using Latin1_bin??  (since UTF has to translate the characters) 
Would using Latin1 clash with my Charset UTF-8 Unicode?

P.s. 3) Using Windows Xp/apache , is simply putting an index.html in all sub folders in my htdocs folder enough to stop people getting their mitts on any of my phpmyadmin settings php files (apologies for the non Mysql question).

kind regards and thanks for your answers

Andrew

[fenway]

1) InnoDB comes with a lot of overhead... if you don't need that stability, then simply back up your DB often, and you'll be fine.

2) It's easier to deal with latin-only characters.

3) No idea.

[effigy]

There are many articles out there comparing the two table types. [url=http://www.developer.com/db/article.php/2235521]Here's one[/url] that breaks it down to "Most people use MyISAM if they need speed and InnoDB for data integrity."

Only use what you need. I wouldn't think UTF-8 would bog you down that much, but it does have to analyze the bits and bytes more. If you're absolutely sure that you're not going to need UTF-8 encoding, don't use it.

I'm not familiar with phpmyadmin. I would either modify the configuration file's permissions, or put it in a protected directory.