...even surpassing it's theorically maximum possible allocation.

[OK] Maximum possible memory usage: 7.3G (46% of installed RAM)

There is not actually a way to calculate maximum possible memory usage for MySQL, because there is no cap on the memory it can request from the system.

The calculation done by mysqltuner.pl is only an estimate, based on a formula that doesn't take into account all possible variables, because if all possible variables were taken into account, the answer would always be "infinite." It's unfortunate that it's labeled this way.

Here is my theory on what's contributing to your excessive memory usage:

thread_cache_size       = 128

Given that your max_connections is set to 200, the value of 128 for thread_cache_size seems far too high. Here's what makes me think this might be contributing to your problem:

When a thread is no longer needed, the memory allocated to it is released and returned to the system unless the thread goes back into the thread cache. In that case, the memory remains allocated.

^{http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/memory-use.html}

If your workload causes even an occasional client thread to require a large amount of memory, those threads may be holding onto that memory, then going back to the pool and sitting around, continuing to hold on to memory they don't technically "need" any more, on the premise that holding on to the memory is less costly than releasing it if you're likely to need it again.

I think it's worth a try to do the following, after first making a note of how much memory MySQL is using at the moment.

Note how many threads are currently cached:

mysql> show status like 'Threads_cached';
+----------------+-------+
| Variable_name  | Value |
+----------------+-------+
| Threads_cached | 9     |
+----------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Next, disable the thread cache.

mysql> SET GLOBAL thread_cache_size = 0;

This disables the thread cache, but the cached threads will stay in the pool until they're used one more time. Disconnect from the server, then reconnect and repeat.

mysql> show status like 'Threads_cached';

Continue disconnecting, reconnecting, and checking until the counter reaches 0.

Then, see how much memory MySQL is holding.

You may see a decrease, possibly significant, and then again you may not. I tested this on one of my systems, which had 9 threads in the cache. Once those threads had all been cleared out of the cache, the total memory held by MySQL did decrease... not by much, but it does illustrate that threads in the cache do release at least some memory when they are destroyed.

If you see a significant decrease, you may have found your problem. If you don't, then there's one more thing that needs to happen, and how quickly it can happen depends on your environment.

If the theory holds that the other threads -- the ones currently servicing active client connections -- have significant memory allocated to them, either because of recent work in their current client session or because of work requiring a lot of memory that was done by another connection prior to them languishing in the pool, then you won't see all of the potential reduction in memory consumption until those threads are allowed to die and be destroyed. Presumably your application doesn't hold them forever, but how long it will take to know for sure whether there's a difference will depend on whether you have the option of cycling your application (dropping and reconnecting the client threads) or if you'll have to just wait for them to be dropped and reconnected over time on their own.

But... it seems like a worthwhile test. You should not see a substantial performance penalty by setting thread_cache_size to 0. Fortunately, thread_cache_size is a dynamic variable, so you can freely change it with the server running.

I addressed this issue 1.5 years ago : innodb_file_format Barracuda

Just from reading the documentation, I was able to figure out mathematically that the smaller you make the key_block_size, the less extra space you need to add to the InnoDB Buffer Pool.

Here is the chart I made up in that earlier post

• You have a DB Server with a 8G Buffer Pool
• You ran compression with key_block_size=8
  • 8 is 50.00% of 16
  • 50.00% of 8G is 4G
  • raise innodb_buffer_pool_size to 12G (8G + 4G)
• You ran compression with key_block_size=4
  • 4 is 25.00% of 16
  • 25.00% of 8G is 2G
  • raise innodb_buffer_pool_size to 10G (8G + 2G)
• You ran compression with key_block_size=2
  • 2 is 12.50% of 16
  • 12.50% of 8G is 1G
  • raise innodb_buffer_pool_size to 9G (8G + 1G)
• You ran compression with key_block_size=1
  • 1 is 06.25% of 16
  • 06.25% of 8G is 0.5G (512M)
  • raise innodb_buffer_pool_size to 8704M (8G (8192M) + 512M)

Given the following

• BPS = Buffer Pool Size
• KBS = key_block_size
• BPSFC = Buffer Pool Size For Compression

The ideal size for the Buffer Pool in a perfect world would be

BPSFC = BPS * (16 + KBS) / 16 

From this formula, less is more. The smaller KBS is, the smaller the increase in BPS needs to be. Additoinally, it would appear that the CPU would worker a little harder in response to tighter compression. How ?

• For KBS=8, evicting one uncompressed page leaves room for 02 compressed pages
• For KBS=4, evicting one uncompressed page leaves room for 04 compressed pages
• For KBS=2, evicting one uncompressed page leaves room for 08 compressed pages
• For KBS=1, evicting one uncompressed page leaves room for 16 compressed pages
• For KBS=X, evicting one uncompressed page leaves room for 16/X compressed pages

I can see the CPU working harder to introduce more compressed pages with tighter compression. This could result in evicting LRU compressed pages more often.

If this is the case, it would appear that making the BPS even bigger than the suggested values from these formulas would give CPU some relief as well as reduce the rate of the eviction of compressed pages from the Buffer Pool.

EXAMPLE: From my first chart, an 8GB Buffer Pool would need to be 12GB for key_block_size=8. Making the Buffer Pool larger than 12GB would relieve the CPU of a lot of this heavy lifting (in the form of evicting uncompressed pages). Perhaps doubling the Buffer Pool Size may be need to be explored.

As for your question

will enabling compression on tables without changing the buffer pool size hurt or benefit the buffer pool hit rate?

I would say it would hurt, no such much because of the hit rate against the compressed pages, but because of the additional house cleaning in terms of the management of uncompressed pages and the CPU usage required for it. This would lower InnoDB performance no matter how much tuning the rest of the Storage Engine gets.