Mysql – Adding indexes to very large tables in MySQL

Try increasing your net_write_timeout (probably a default value of 60secs is too small in your scenario of blob and binary values)

Ref:

net_write_timeout

and in general:

net_read_timeout

The activity of altering big tables are done in phases:

1. Create a new table with required fields and indexes say in test DB (just structure)
2. Dump the data from the existing table and load the same to the newly created table in test DB
3. Now announce your downtime :)
4. Swap the tables by renaming - RENAME table ur_db.table_name to test.temp, test.table_name to ur_db.table_name, test.temp to test.table_name; This is an atomic operation taking fraction of a second.
5. Load the extra records to the newly created table ( the records that came after dumping and then loading). This step can be done before Step: 3 also once to reduce your downtime.
6. And your system is back

Few notes:

1. You need not hit information schema directly like this, try using SHOW TABLE STATUS from db like 'table_name'
2. The speed of alter table is more or less linked with the I/O speed. Last time when we ran a direct alter table(without the above steps), we had 40GB+ table size it took around 4hours. If your 20GB data is taking years, you are working on some outdated machine.
3. Also drop of the unwanted indexes like index_bslt_ondate, index_base_schedule_line_items_loan_base_schedule as some other indexes has the left most column as the indexed column

Please let me know if you need any clarification on any of these steps.

Edit : A simple python script to automate the process https://github.com/georgecj11/hotswap_mysql_table.git