MySQL offerings
MySQL has several "Engines". In all engines, actions are performed in RAM. The Engines differ significantly in how good they are at making sure the data "persists" on disk.
ENGINE=MEMORY -- This is not persistent; the data is found only in RAM. It is limited to some preset max size. On a power failure, all data (in a MEMORY table) is lost.
ENGINE=MyISAM -- This is an old engine; it persists data to disk, but in the case of power failure, sometimes the indexes are corrupted and need 'repairing'. MySQL 8.0 is getting rid of this Engine; MariaDB continues to support it.
ENGINE=InnoDB -- This is the preferred engine. It not only persists to disk but 'guarantees' consistency even across power failures.
Aria, Columstore, FederatedX, Spider, ... -- MariaDB supports several other 'Engines', each with a niche market.