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Mike Portnoy was born and raised in Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. His father worked as a DJ at a local radio station, helping Portnoy gain an appreciation for music at an early age through bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Yes and The Beatles. Although Portnoy taught himself how to play the drums he did take music theory classes in high school, and during that period he began playing in local bands Intruder, Rising Power and Inner Sanctum, the latter of which released an album. He left Inner Sanctum after being awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he met John Petrucci and John Myung (who were childhood friends), and formed a band called Majesty, that would later become Dream Theater.

Portnoy names his biggest influences as Rush drummer Neil Peart, and composer/guitarist Frank Zappa. Other favorites include drummers Terry Bozzio, Vinnie Colaiuta, Peter Criss, Simon Phillips, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Phil Collins, and Bill Bruford and bands such as The Beatles, Queen, Yes, Genesis, Rush, Pink Floyd, Muse, Metallica, Jellyfish, Iron Maiden, KISS, Phish, Deep Purple, Radiohead, Umphrey's McGee, U2 and Jane's Addiction.

Portnoy has won 20 awards from Modern Drummer magazine, including "Best Up & Coming Talent" (one time), "Best Clinician" (two times), "Best Educational Video/DVD" (two times), "Best recorded performance" (5 times) and "Best Progressive Rock Drummer" (for 12 consecutive years), and is also the youngest person (at 37 years of age) to be inducted into their Rock Drummer Hall of Fame.

He has also been the catalyst for founding several other progressive rock groups and projects: Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment, and O.S.I. (with former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore), touring as well with Mexican drummer "Chucho" Dávila giving free clinic sessions to local Music Stores in Texas in 2005.

He has released two instructional videos, Progressive Drum Concepts and Liquid Drum Theater, the latter winning awards from Modern Drummer Magazine. He has also released many "Official Bootlegs" on his website, including footage of the studio sessions for the Dream Theater albums Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Train of Thought, Octavarium and the Transatlantic release Bridge Across Forever. He also recently released bootlegs of his tribute bands Hammer of the Gods (a Led Zeppelin tribute) and Yellow Matter Custard (Beatles), with more expected from his other tribute projects Cygnus and his Sea Monsters (Rush) and Mike Portnoy's Amazing Journey (The Who).

He also played with New Jersey thrash metal band Overkill for one show in 2004.

On September 18th, 2006 within his website's Forum Portnoy cagily stated that he had finally met Rush drummer Neil Peart (one of the few heroes from his youth Portnoy had never met, owing to Peart's legendary privacy), that "Neil and I have finally met and we spent some time together this week and had a great time..." , and that a possible collaboration was underway/had been discussed with the teasing statement of "Patience everybody... all will soon be revealed!" It has now been revealed that this meeting was for an interview Portnoy did for his stint as guest editor of Rhythm Magazine. Portnoy had previously written the liner notes for the Japanese pressing of Rush's 2002 release Vapor Trails, but also publicly denounced Peart in 2000 after Peart called the people involved in the Rush tribute "bar bands".

Portnoy has used several kits throughout the years, all of which were built by Tama Seisakusho except for the Awake - A Change Of Seasons era kit, which was a Mapex. To date, he has used the following drum sets:

Tama has marketed two different sized Mike Portnoy signature snare drums, known as "Melody Masters" (named after Melody, his daughter), since the late 1990s. The smaller of the two has a 12x5" steel shell and the larger has a 14x5.5" maple shell. Both snare models have a unique three way snare strainer mechanism. Portnoy and Tama have custom-made versions in various colors to match the color schemes of the kit he was using at the time (i.e. The "Purple/Red/Green Monsters", "Siamese Monster" "Albino Monster", etc.). For 2006, in recognition of his 'Albino Monster' kit, he released only 250 of these snares worldwide in a white, gloss finish. The older colour (black) is not limited edition.

Sabian has marketed three different sized signature cymbal stacks, known as "Max Stax" (named after his son, Max). They consist of a hand hammered china kang-style cymbal on top of a splash (or crash) cymbal. Their sizes are 8/8", 10/10" and 12/14". Sabian also marketed 7, 9, and 11" "Max Splash" cymbals which have the same namesake.

Portnoy has endorsed Promark sticks since the early 1990s. His signature stick is the TX420N. It is made of hickory with a white nylon tip and has purple print to match the Purple Monster's motif. The "420" in the model number, which is also printed on the sticks, is a reference to his birthday (and not a marijuana reference, as has been suggested). He holds his left stick upside down so he gets a good rim click sound and also a good tom sound, as toms sound better when hit with a bigger beater and he likes to hit toms on and off the beat in some of his grooves.

Mike and his wife Marlene (former member of the metalband Meanstreak) live in Pennsylvania with their daughter Melody Ruthandrea, son Max John, dog Bongo and cat Cypress.

An avid collector of many things, Portnoy has a vast array of Dream Theater memorabilia including bootlegs, posters, clippings and everything else under the sun with the band's name on it. He is also responsible for capturing everything the band does on video tape and DAT (see YtseJam Records). His huge video collection includes favorite films such as 2001 - A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Jacob's Ladder and The Wall along with episodes of The Simpsons and memorable boxing matches. His love of A Clockwork Orange is so great that a section of the soundtrack was used as Dream Theater's intro tape on both the first several legs of 1997/98's "Touring Into Infinity" World Tour as well as the Octavarium/20th Anniversary World Tour of 2005/06.

Mike is also a recovering alcoholic. This prompted him to write a musical suite which will eventually comprise the 12 Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program. So far, Dream Theater has written three songs, which describe seven of the twelve steps. These are: "The Glass Prison" (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence), "This Dying Soul" (Train of Thought), and "The Root of All Evil" (Octavarium). The song "The Mirror" (Awake), which was also written by Mike and discusses the same topic, is not officially a part of Mike's "AA Saga". Though some fans wonder about how deep his alcoholism ran within him, fans highly respect his right to privacy and as a respected musican and stray from bringing the subject up around him (whether it be in person or via the internet). He explained in an XM radio interview on June 4, 2005 about his alcholism, which the whole interview is put on his site to listen to. He stated regarding his drinking;

"Well I've had Dream Theater since basically my first week of college, so I was pretty much right out of high school when Dream Theater formed twenty years ago. But, uh, yeah like I said before Alcoholism, is a progressive disease, so I-I always drank right out of high school, and you know it got worse and worse as time went on. It started out fun, but uh, like anyone else who is in the program, anyone else who is in recovery, it starts off fun, it starts off great, you have it in control but then it starts to get out of control, then you know you loose control. You know, through all my years, for the bulk of my years, it was never a serious problem for Dream Theater, but you know after playing I would go home and basically drink myself to bed. And, as time went on, and as the band got more successful, it definatley helps feed that progression. When I could look at my rider and basically have on Monday nights Jack Daniels, Wedsedays it's Johhny Walker, it would alternate everynight on what was in the dressing room, or a few cases of beer and, the other guys didn't really drink, they were pretty straight, I was always hanging with the road crew or the opening band. And the more I had access to what I want, I took advantage and it fed that problem. It got to the point where I was playing sloppy, and I was drinking before the show and also I would be drinking by the tour bus and the fans seeing me, it's just--not nice."

Shortly after playing the set for the Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York DVD and CD, Mike fainted backstage. His statement on this incident from the FAQ on his personal website is as follows: "I collapsed and passed out due to over-exhaustion, dehydration, stress, too little food and nutrition, too many Red Bulls, etc. It took me several hours of throwing up, being wrapped in blankets and laying down before I was carried out of the venue hours after the show." The audio commentary on the DVD has more information on this.