# MysqlDump working better than XtraBackup?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Percona XtraBackup\ **Created:** [May 8, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/mysqldump-working-better-than-xtrabackup/2670 "2013-05-08T07:35:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![atul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@atul](https://forums.percona.com/u/atul)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/mysqldump-working-better-than-xtrabackup/2670/1 "2013-05-08T07:35:55Z")
Hi, During Xtrabackup evaluation, I found mysqldump is performing better than Xtrabackup. Server: Centos 2.6 in virtualbox over mac 10.6 3 GB ram 4 virtual cpu percona-xtrabackup.x86\_64 2.0.7-552.rhel6 Percona-Server-server-51.x86\_64 5.1.68-rel14.6.551.rhel6 ## Using MysqlDump total time: 45 minutes total backup size: 38GB Command used to take backup: mysqldump --user=root mydb \> /home/mydb.sql ## Using XtraBackup total backup size: 63GB total time: 53 minutes Command used to take backup: innobackupex --user=root /home No other service was running on system during these tests. Can somebody explain why MysqlDump performed better? Or I am missing something? Thanks & Regards, Atul Atri. ---
**Author:** ![gmouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@gmouse](https://forums.percona.com/u/gmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:41am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/mysqldump-working-better-than-xtrabackup/2670/2 "2013-05-08T09:41:39Z")
It seems disk i/o is a real bottleneck in your backup process since XtraBackup can only copy at 1.2 GB/min (20 MB/s). MySQLdump has the benefit that it doesn’t copy index data and page overhead (this explains the difference between 38GB and 63GB). This doesn’t mean that MySQLdump is better, since you should also look at restore times.