We had cases where failing MySQL queries[1] would leave behind GigaBytes of garbage data that we (as users of Amazon's RDS) have to pay for and have no option o

We had cases where failing MySQL queries[1] would leave behind GigaBytes of garbage data that we (as users of Amazon's RDS) have to pay for and have no option of removing (besides killing the entire database and rebuilding a new one, which would cost us more than just living with the garbage). Having our own small EC2 instance with MySQL on it would have saved us quite a few hours of work/downtime. [1] Have a database of a few gigabytes of sizes, start an ``ALTER TABLE`` and wait until your pre-allocated disk space is filled up. The query dies and you just fucked yourself. Can happen unexpectedly: We tried to remove a non-existing index on a table and MySQL decided to FIRST copy the entire table and THEN report that there is no such index.