Weighing up performance and data detail in MySQL

[eluser]lukeinjax[/eluser]
If I understand correctly, you are looking at a set of normalized tables vs. a single de-normalized table for the sake of performance? If I were you, I'd do some testing. Load up the data into 2 normalized tables (you can just write a loop to insert the data), add the appropriate indexes and see how long it takes. If it's within an acceptable range, then use that approach. The metrics should be fairly easy to extract with CI's built in profiler function.

As long as BOTH tables are not huge, the performance impacts of having 2 normalized tables should not be too significant I wouldn't think, as long as the proper indexes are created.