Restrictions and Limitations on Partitioning +------------+ | | +------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql>  CREATE TABLE tu (c1 BIGINT UNSIGNED) -> PARTITION BY RANGE(c1 - 10) ( -> PARTITION p0 VALUES LESS THAN (-5), -> PARTITION p1 VALUES LESS THAN (0), -> PARTITION p2 VALUES LESS THAN (5), -> PARTITION p3 VALUES LESS THAN (10), -> PARTITION p4 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE) ->  ); ERROR 1563 (HY000): Partition constant is out of partition function domain mysql>  SET sql_mode=’NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION’; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql>  SELECT @@sql_mode; +-------------------------+ | @@sql_mode | +-------------------------+ | NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION | +-------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql>  CREATE TABLE tu (c1 BIGINT UNSIGNED) -> PARTITION BY RANGE(c1 - 10) ( -> PARTITION p0 VALUES LESS THAN (-5), -> PARTITION p1 VALUES LESS THAN (0), -> PARTITION p2 VALUES LESS THAN (5), -> PARTITION p3 VALUES LESS THAN (10), -> PARTITION p4 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE) ->  ); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.05 sec) If you remove the  NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION  server SQL mode after creating  tu , you may no longer be able to access this table: See also Section 5.1.11, “Server SQL Modes” . Server SQL modes also impact replication of partitioned tables. Disparate SQL modes on source and replica can lead to partitioning expressions being evaluated differently; this can cause the distribution of data among partitions to be different in the source’s and replica’s copies of a given table, and may even cause inserts into partitioned tables that succeed on the source to fail on the replica. For best results, you should always use the same server SQL mode on the source and on the replica. Performance considerations.   Some effects of partitioning operations on performance are given in the following list: • File system operations.   Partitioning and repartitioning operations (such as  ALTER TABLE  with PARTITION BY ... ,  REORGANIZE PARTITION , or  REMOVE PARTITIONING ) depend on file system operations for their implementation. This means that the speed of these operations is affected by such factors as file system type and characteristics, disk speed, swap space, file handling efficiency of the operating system, and MySQL server options and variables that relate to file handling. In particular, 4715 mysql>  SET sql_mode=’’; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql>  SELECT * FROM tu; ERROR 1563 (HY000): Partition constant is out of partition function domain mysql>  INSERT INTO tu VALUES (20); ERROR 1563 (HY000): Partition constant is out of partition function domain