One of the things I like about PhpMyAdmin is its ability to export an entire database as a series of SQL statements (CREATE and INSERT), a feature I miss in SQL Server.
On the other hand the same PhpMyAdmin has a very serious limitation when it comes to import back SQL files: it wouldn’t import any files larger than 2Mb. I’m not sure what are the technical reasons for this limitation. This is due to the PHP configuration (upload_max_filesize and post_max_filesize directives in PHP.ini). If you are using a sared server, you may not be able to change these values.
Fortunately I’ve discovered a very simple tool called BigDump. This little PHP script allows for arbitrary-sized sql files to be imported in the MySql database with no headaches. It’s pretty simple to configure, files can be uploaded via ftp and it’ll show them in a list for easy restore. It supports both text (*.sql) and compressed (*.gz) files.
Update: As Joe Limonada (hi Ami 
) has said, if you have access to the shell, you can write
mysqldump -u MYSQL_USERNAME -p -h MYSQL_SERVER_ADDRESS DATABASE_NAME > dump.sql
to backup the database and
mysql -u MYSQL_USERNAME -p -h MYSQL_SERVER_ADDRESS DATABASE_NAME < dump.sql
to restore.
This is NOT PhpMyAdmin’s fault. It’s due to your own php configuration that has its limits on max upload filesize and probably max execution time too.
In some situation you can use someting like this:
Unix systems: cat dumpfile | mysql -u …
Windows: type dumpfile | mysql -u …
There should not be a 2Mb or 2Gb limit from the system since it uses pipelines.
[...] it? … 5. Install mySQL Administrator (Thank me later) 6. Create the SQL database you want to …Importing large databases in MySQLUsing BigDump to import/restore large MySql databases … This little PHP script allows for [...]