Disabling AUTOCOMMIT, UNIQUE_CHECKS, and FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS speeds up mysql restores dramatically. My own tests of a 30MB dump were cut from 6 minutes to 11 seconds. My 2GB backups can now be imported in a reasonable 40 minutes.
The following script will add one line to the top and bottom of your mysqldump file. This can take a while for large files. There’s no shortcut for prepending text, the entire file must be rewritten.
https://gist.github.com/mddubs/6d534d38e221570bdab815e21178b3e6
Matt Williamson 