Why SELECT * 20M Rows Won't OOM MySQL: Streaming Protocol & LRU Protection
The article explains why a MySQL SELECT * query scanning 20 million rows won't cause server-side OOM due to its streaming protocol using a 16KB net_buffer, but warns that full table scans can pollute the Buffer Pool, though InnoDB's midpoint insertion strategy and innodb_old_blocks_time (default 1s) protect hot data from eviction.
