How can I optimize a mysqldump of a large database?

The main bottleneck in the dump like this is drive I/O. You are reading a load of data and writing it again. You can speed this up in a number of ways:

• Make sure your output is going to a different drive(s) than the one(s) the database files are stored on - this will make a massive difference with spinning disks as the drive heads will not be constantly flicking between the location being read from and the location being written to.
• The output of mysqldump will be very compressible, so if you can not separate the output from the input as mentioned above pipe the output through gzip or similar. This will reduce the amount of writing being done (so reduce the overall IO load, and the amount of head movement) at the expense of some CPU time (which you may have a lot of spare at these times anyway).
• Also, (as well or instead of compression) pass the output through a pipe utility (like pv) that supports large write buffers to group blocks written to the drives together more, again to reduce the effect of head-movement latency - this will make quite a difference if using the --quick option to reduce the RAM impact of backing up large tables).
• Only run your backup process when IO load is otherwise low.

You may be fixing the wrong issue though: it might be easier to address the connection drops instead (though reducing the I/O load imposed by your backups will help reduce the effect you have on other users so is worth trying anyway). Could you run your manual backups through screen (or similar tools like tmux)? That way if your connection to the server drops you can just reconnect and reattach to the screen session without any processes getting interrupted.

If you are sending the data directly over the connection (i.e. you are running mysqldump on your local machine against a remote database, so the dump appears locally) you might be better off running the dump on the server first, compressing as needed, then transferring the data over the network using a tool (such as rsync) which supports partial transfers so you can resume the transfer (instead of restarting) if a connection drop interrupts it.

As part of your "reducing the size of the overall database to resolve this issue" I would guess that a large chunk of your data does not change. You might be able to move a large chunk of the 1.2Gb from that main table off into another and remove that from those that are copied by the mysqldump call. You don't need to backup this data every time if it never changes. Splitting data between tables and databases this way is usually referred to as data partitioning and can also allow you to spread the data and I/O load over multiple drives. High-end database have built in support for automatic partitioning, though in mysql you will probably have to do it manually and alter your data access layer to account for it.

Straying off-topic for this site (so you should probably nip over to ServerFault or SuperUser to ask if you need more detail): If you seem to be losing connections due to inactivity, check the options in your SSH server and SSH client to make sure keep-alive packets are enabled and being sent often enough. If seeing drops even if the connection is active you could also try using OpenVPN or similar to wrap the connection - it should handle a short drop, even a complete drop if your entire connection is down for a few seconds, such that the SSH client and server don't notice.

INSIGHT INTO DOING BACKUPS WITH mysqldump

IMHO Doing backups has become more of an art form if you know just how to approach it

You have options

Option 1 : mysqldump an entire mysql instance

This is the easiest one, the no-brainer !!!

mysqldump -h... -u... -p... --hex-blob --routines --triggers --all-databases | gzip > MySQLData.sql.gz

Everything written in one file: table structures, indexes, triggers, stored procedures, users, encrypted passwords. Other mysqldump options can also export different styles of INSERT commands, log file and position coordinates from binary logs, database creation options, partial data (--where option), and so forth.

Option 2 : mysqldump separate databases into separate data files

Start by creating a list of databases (2 techniques to do this)

Technique 1

mysql -h... -u... -p... -A --skip-column-names -e"SELECT schema_name FROM information_schema.schemata WHERE schema_name NOT IN ('information_schema','mysql')" > ListOfDatabases.txt

Technique 2

mysql -h... -u... -p... -A --skip-column-names -e"SELECT DISTINCT table_schema FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('information_schema','mysql')" > ListOfDatabases.txt

Technique 1 is the fastest way. Technique 2 is the surest and safest. Technique 2 is better because, sometimes, users create folders for general purposes in /var/lib/mysql (datadir) which are not database related. The information_schema would register the folder as a database in the information_schema.schemata table. Technique 2 would bypass folders that do not contain mysql data.

Once you compile the list of databases, you can proceed to loop through the list and mysqldump them, even in parallel if so desired.

for DB in `cat ListOfDatabases.txt`
do
    mysqldump -h... -u... -p... --hex-blob --routines --triggers ${DB} | gzip > ${DB}.sql.gz &
done
wait

If there are too many databases to launch at one time, parallel dump them 10 at a time:

COMMIT_COUNT=0
COMMIT_LIMIT=10
for DB in `cat ListOfDatabases.txt`
do
    mysqldump -h... -u... -p... --hex-blob --routines --triggers ${DB} | gzip > ${DB}.sql.gz &
    (( COMMIT_COUNT++ ))
    if [ ${COMMIT_COUNT} -eq ${COMMIT_LIMIT} ]
    then
        COMMIT_COUNT=0
        wait
    fi
done
if [ ${COMMIT_COUNT} -gt 0 ]
then
    wait
fi

Option 3 : mysqldump separate tables into separate data files

Start by creating a list of tables

mysql -h... -u... -p... -A --skip-column-names -e"SELECT CONCAT(table_schema,'.',table_name) FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('information_schema','mysql')" > ListOfTables.txt

Then dump all tables in groups of 10

COMMIT_COUNT=0
COMMIT_LIMIT=10
for DBTB in `cat ListOfTables.txt`
do
    DB=`echo ${DBTB} | sed 's/\./ /g' | awk '{print $1}'`
    TB=`echo ${DBTB} | sed 's/\./ /g' | awk '{print $2}'`
    mysqldump -h... -u... -p... --hex-blob --triggers ${DB} ${TB} | gzip > ${DB}_${TB}.sql.gz &
    (( COMMIT_COUNT++ ))
    if [ ${COMMIT_COUNT} -eq ${COMMIT_LIMIT} ]
    then
        COMMIT_COUNT=0
        wait
    fi
done
if [ ${COMMIT_COUNT} -gt 0 ]
then
    wait
fi

Option 4 : USE YOUR IMAGINATION

Try variations of the aforementioned Options plus techniques for clean snapshots

Examples

1. Order the list of tables by the size of each tables ascending or descending.
2. Using separate process, run "FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK; SELECT SLEEP(86400)" before launching mysqldumps. Kill this process after mysqldumps are complete. This is helpful if a database contains both InnoDB and MyISAM
3. Save the mysqldumps in dated folders and rotate out old backup folders.
4. Load whole instance mysqldumps into standalone servers.

CAVEAT

Only Option 1 brings everything. The drawback is that mysqldumps created this way can only be reloaded into the same majot release version of mysql that the mysqldump was generated. In other words, a mysqldump from a MySQL 5.0 database cannot be loaded in 5.1 or 5.5. The reason ? The mysql schema is total different among major releases.

Options 2 and 3 do not include saving usernames and passwords.

Here is the generic way to dump the SQL Grants for users that is readble and more portable

mysql -h... -u... -p... --skip-column-names -A -e"SELECT CONCAT('SHOW GRANTS FOR ''',user,'''@''',host,''';') FROM mysql.user WHERE user<>''" | mysql -h... -u... -p... --skip-column-names -A | sed 's/$/;/g' > MySQLGrants.sql

Option 3 does not save the stored procedures, so you can do the following

mysqldump -h... -u... -p... --no-data --no-create-info --routines > MySQLStoredProcedures.sql &

Another point that should be noted is concerning InnoDB. If your have a large InnoDB buffer pool, it makes sense to flush it as best you can before performing any backups. Otherwise, MySQL spends the time flushing tables with leftover dirty page out of the buffer pool. Here is what I suggest:

About 1 hour before performing the backup run this SQL command

SET GLOBAL innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct = 0;

In MySQL 5.5 default innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct is 75. In MySQL 5.1 and back, default innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct is 90. By setting innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct to 0, this will hasten the flushing of dirty pages to disk. This will prevent or at least lessen the impact of cleaning up any incomplete two-phase commits of InnoDB data prior to performing any mysqldump against any InnoDB tables.

FINAL WORD ON mysqldump

Most people shy away from mysqldump in favor of other tools and those tools are indeed good.

Such tools include

1. MAATKIT (parallel dump/restore scripts, from Percona [Deprecated but great])
2. XtraBackup (TopNotch Snapshot Backup from Percona)
3. CDP R1Soft (MySQL Module Option that takes point-in-time snapshots)
4. MySQL Enterprise Backup (formerly InnoDB Hot Backups [commercial])

If you have the spirit of a true MySQL DBA, you can embrace mysqldump and have the complete mastery over it that can be attained. May all your backups be a reflection of your skills as a MySQL DBA.

Plan A: See also Xtrabackup from Percona. This allows online backup of InnoDB, without any significant locking.

Plan B: A Slave can be stopped, and you can take a consistent backup by any of several means (copy files, mysqldump, xtrabackup, etc)

Plan C: LVM Snapshot. After some cryptic setup, the downtime for a backup is less than a minute, regardless of the size of the database. You stop mysqld, do the snapshot, restart mysqld, then copy the snapshot. The last step can take a long time, but MySQL is not down.

Plan D: Snapshot of a Slave -- zero downtime.