If InnoDB is not your default storage engine, you can determine if your database server or applications work correctly with InnoDB by restarting the server with --default-storage-engine=InnoDB defined on the command line or with default-storage-engine=innodb defined in the [mysqld] section of your MySQL server option file.

Since changing the default storage engine only affects new tables as they are created, run all your application installation and setup steps to confirm that everything installs properly. Then exercise all the application features to make sure all the data loading, editing, and querying features work. If a table relies on a feature that is specific to another storage engine, you will receive an error; add the ENGINE=other_engine_name clause to the CREATE TABLE statement to avoid the error.

If you did not make a deliberate decision about the storage engine, and you want to preview how certain tables work when created using InnoDB, issue the command ALTER TABLE table_name ENGINE=InnoDB; for each table. Or, to run test queries and other statements without disturbing the original table, make a copy:

CREATE TABLE InnoDB_Table (...) ENGINE=InnoDB AS SELECT * FROM other_engine_table;

To assess performance with a full application under a realistic workload, install the latest MySQL server and run benchmarks.

Test the full application lifecycle, from installation, through heavy usage, and server restart. Kill the server process while the database is busy to simulate a power failure, and verify that the data is recovered successfully when you restart the server.

Test any replication configurations, especially if you use different MySQL versions and options on the master and slaves.