MYSQL: User - profile details table setup - best practice

Question

Next to your normal user table \"user\"(user_id/user_email/user_pwd/etc), what is the best way to go to store profile information?

Would one just add fields to the user

Answer 1

Table with property definitions isn't the good idea. I suggest to use three tables to store data:

user(id,login,email,pwd, is_banned, expired, ...) 
-- rarely changed, keep small, extremaly fast search, easy to cache, admin data
profile(id, user_id, firstname,lastname, hobby,description, motto)
--data often changed by user,...    
user_stats(id,user_id,last_login,first_login,post_counter, visit_counter, comment_counter)
--counters are very often updated, dml invalidate cache

The better way to store authorisation and authentication data is LDAP.