i was told that it takes days if i need to backup a databases with large tables using mysqldump

what other ways i can backup the whole database and recover it in short time?

i heard about myisampack but not too sure about it..
still new to database & mysql..

hi,
it depend on how busy the db is. I make backups as follow:

1. lock table
2. make a os file copy to an other disk
3. unlock table

This is suitable for us , because each table copy takes less than a few minutes.

A better approach would be:
setup an mysql slave on an other machine an configure a replication between you actual system and that slave.
1. shutdown the slave
2. make offline backup of slave
3. restart slave
4. watch replication (should start automatically)

Greetings, Martin

hi msueper,
what do you mean by
2. make a os file copy to an other disk?

i've thought us copying all the FRM, MYD, MYI files to another database data directory in another server

couldnt find any good site explaning ways of doing it
what should i do after copying?

any advice?

thanks