I had to import a very large dataset (about 2.5M rows – OK, not that large, but large enough to cut my teeth on it). After a quick search on google I found out that the most efficient way to import data into mysql is to use the mysqlimport command which is shipped with MySql.

It’s amazing how efficient it is. I used it to import cvs files into a MySql server. Bot the source and the destination are hostes on AWS, so the network time should be small enough. It manages to import aroung 180K rows in less tha 15 seconds.