I am running the standard 3.2a version of Uniform server on a Win XP 64 box with dual 2.2GHz Opterons (i.e. 4 cores), 6Gb ram and a 15k rpm scsi drive.

The system is running a very large database (approx 276 million records at present) and is working pretty well. I would really like some advice on optimising the MySQL settings to improve query times as most queries now take well over an hour to run.

The system doesn't appear to be making very much use of the 6GB of ram that is installed so hopefully someone can tell me how to remedy that little problem to keep more table information cached in memory.

Any other optimisation tips for large databases (in terms of records as the physical file is under 30Gb) would also be appreciated.

On the MySQL site, there are some tools you can install that can help you optimize the database. I'm not sure if phpMyAdmin can do it, but it should be possible... not too sure though.

Try downloading MySQL Administration, i used it before. Also search for more optimizing tools.

Wow, thats one big database. Anyways, about the RAM, thats what i noticed with MySQL. Try and search Google and ways of letting it go to full potential. It might be in the my.cnf file. Never tried it.

Hope this helps. Good luck