Optimizing MySQL backups

In the past I've always used mysqldump without any additional parameters to back up MySQL databases. Today I started thinking if it could be faster, and I found some really useful switches:

--disable-keys - build non-unique indexes after all inserts are complete

--extended-insert - smaller sql file and faster inserts

--add-locks - lock tables while inserting

--quick - dump rows directly from database one-by-one instead of reading into RAM buffer first

Tweet to @mbabuskov Milan Babuškov, 2013-04-18