title: Why is table-level locking better than row-level locking for large tables?
body: <p>According to the <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/table-locking.html" rel="noreferrer">MySQL manual</a>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>For large tables, table locking is often better than row locking, </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Why is this?  I would presume that row-level locking is better because when you lock on a larger table, you're locking more data.</p>