Online DDL Operations The following table shows the online status for each  ALTER TABLE  partitioning statement. Regardless of the online DDL API that is used, MySQL attempts to minimize data copying and locking where possible. ALTER TABLE  partitioning options that use  ALGORITHM=COPY  or that only permit “ ALGORITHM=DEFAULT, LOCK=DEFAULT ” , repartition the table using the  COPY  algorithm. In other words, a new partitioned table is created with the new partitioning scheme. The newly created table includes any changes applied by the  ALTER TABLE  statement, and table data is copied into the new table structure. Table 15.23 Online DDL Support for Partitioning Operations Partitioning Clause Instant In Place Permits DML Notes PARTITION BY No No No Permits ALGORITHM=COPY , LOCK={DEFAULT| SHARED| EXCLUSIVE} ADD PARTITION No Yes* Yes* ALGORITHM=INPLACE, LOCK={DEFAULT| NONE|SHARED| EXCLUSISVE} is supported for  RANGE  and LIST  partitions, ALGORITHM=INPLACE, LOCK={DEFAULT| SHARED| EXCLUSISVE} for  HASH  and  KEY partitions, and ALGORITHM=COPY, LOCK={SHARED| EXCLUSIVE}  for all partition types. Does not copy existing data for tables partitioned by  RANGE  or  LIST . Concurrent queries are permitted with ALGORITHM=COPY for tables partitioned by  HASH or  LIST , as MySQL copies the data while holding a shared lock. DROP PARTITION No Yes* Yes* ALGORITHM=INPLACE, LOCK={DEFAULT| NONE|SHARED| EXCLUSIVE}  is supported. Does not copy data for 3188