sql - is mysql capable of managing the data for a site which holds lots of data -

is mysql capable of managing data site holds lots of data (say hundreds of millions of users)? database capable/beneficial?

there couple of answers this.

yes, mysql can store hundreds of millions of records; need know you're doing, have decent database schema, pretty robust hardware, you're not pushing limits.

when talk "hundreds of millions of users", you're talking site along lines of wikipedia/facebook/google/amazon in scale. need custom, highly cached, distributed architecture run site @ scale - , traditional database driven application architecture not enough. still store data in mysql, you'd need whole bunch of additional components make work - , without knowing more application, nobody tell might be. @ scale, none of commonly used databases suffice, mysql no better or worse of other options...