InnoDB takes over an hour to import 600MB file, MyISAM in a few minutes

Question

I\'m currently working on creating an environment to test performance of an app; I\'m testing with MySQL and InnoDB to find out which can serve us best. Within this environm

Answer 1

Did you try the Bulk Data Loading Tips from the InnoDB Performance Tuning Tips (especially the first one):

• When importing data into InnoDB, make sure that MySQL does not have autocommit mode enabled because that requires a log flush to disk for every insert. To disable autocommit during your import operation, surround it with SET autocommit and COMMIT statements:

  SET autocommit=0;
  ... SQL import statements ...
  COMMIT;
  

  If you use the mysqldump option --opt, you get dump files that are fast to import into an InnoDB table, even without wrapping them with the SET autocommit and COMMIT statements.

• If you have UNIQUE constraints on secondary keys, you can speed up table imports by temporarily turning off the uniqueness checks during the import session:

  SET unique_checks=0;
  ... SQL import statements ...
  SET unique_checks=1;
  

  For big tables, this saves a lot of disk I/O because InnoDB can use its insert buffer to write secondary index records in a batch. Be certain that the data contains no duplicate keys.

• If you have FOREIGN KEY constraints in your tables, you can speed up table imports by turning the foreign key checks off for the duration of the import session:

  SET foreign_key_checks=0;
  ... SQL import statements ...
  SET foreign_key_checks=1;
  

  For big tables, this can save a lot of disk I/O.

IMO, the whole chapter is worth the read.