--- title: I Thought Databases Were Just Storage Until I Looked Deeper description: A developer shares their journey from treating databases as simple storage to becoming a DBA. The post reflects on curiosity about how indexes, caching with... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-databases-were-just-storage-until-i-looked-deeper-i2rvofiid twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I Thought Databases Were Just Storage Until I Looked Deeper | daily.dev og:description: A developer shares their journey from treating databases as simple storage to becoming a DBA. The post reflects on curiosity about how indexes, caching with... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-databases-were-just-storage-until-i-looked-deeper-i2rvofiid og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/i2RvoFiid.png og:image:alt: I Thought Databases Were Just Storage Until I Looked Deeper og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I Thought Databases Were Just Storage Until I Looked Deeper **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer shares their journey from treating databases as simple storage to becoming a DBA. The post reflects on curiosity about how indexes, caching with Redis, and query performance really work under the hood. It culminates in the experience of upgrading MySQL from 5.7 to 8.4 in a test environment, capturing the anxiety and responsibility that comes with managing real production data. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How to Prevent the DB from Becoming a Bottleneck](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-prevent-the-db-from-becoming-a-bottleneck-lsdovapbd) · System Design Codex · 14 upvotes · 1 comments - [Just Use Postgres](https://daily.dev/posts/just-use-postgres-ueffslq3a) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Beyond Indexes: How Open Table Formats Optimize Query Performance — Jack Vanlightly](https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-indexes-how-open-table-formats-optimize-query-performance-jack-vanlightly-inrhgb2yf) · Programming Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#database](https://daily.dev/tags/database), [#backend](https://daily.dev/tags/backend), [#redis](https://daily.dev/tags/redis), [#mysql](https://daily.dev/tags/mysql) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-databases-were-just-storage-until-i-looked-deeper-i2rvofiid) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I Thought Databases Were Just Storage Until I Looked Deeper","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-databases-were-just-storage-until-i-looked-deeper-i2rvofiid","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-databases-were-just-storage-until-i-looked-deeper-i2rvofiid"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T06:01:11.409Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:01:08.321Z","description":"A developer shares their journey from treating databases as simple storage to becoming a DBA. 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