Hi guys, I ran into a little problem. I can't seem to restore my database because it is too large, and it keeps on timing out on me. Usually, I'd use SSH to restore the database, but I don't have root access (shared server) so I really have no idea what to do. I read somewhere that I should split the database into little chunks, but how would I do that? I now only have a backup of the database, the original has been deleted. Thanks all.
If you can grant remote access to the database, something like Navicat may work for you. I've restored large databases (>10 GB) remotely with it without any problem. They offer a free trial and a personal version for non commercial usage: http://www.navicat.com/.
Another program is MySQLDumper - http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/ I have been using it to backup my 500+ meg VBulletin database for almost a year now. Mysqldumper compresses that 500 megs to about 100 megs, then stores it in a directory on your server. You can also download the database straight to your desktop after the backup is complete. While doing a restore you can pick from different backups that are on your server. So if one backup is curropt (unlikely) you can go to the next backup and restore from there. Once you have a few dozen backups in on the server, you can use the file manager to delete the backups you have downloaded to your computer. For really huge backups, you can FTP into the server, upload the database, then use mysqldumper to restore the database. Twice I have used it to restore the database and it worked fine both times. It took about 20 minutes to restore a 500+ meg database. Also, mysqldumper can backup your database by a cron job. So you can schedule regular backups. If you want a multi-part backup, or just want to back up certain tables - MySQLDumper can do all of that as well.
MySQLDumper looks good. I was searching for something like that and lucky to find this post. Thanks for the links. Rep added!
there is also an option to do this from your cpanel. Go to backups in your cpanel and there you have the option of restoring the database, select your file from your comp and upload it. This works better than phpmyadmin and it doesn't timeout as fast.