MySQLDump utility is quite useful in backing up website data. However, you may find that mysqldump hangs website when exporting large amounts of data.
The issue is caused with locking up tables while exporting. All you need to do is supply command line parameters to your mysqldump call. This will ensure that no locks are enabled while exporting data.
Faster MySQLDump parameters on the command line
mysqldump --max_allowed_packet=1G --single-transaction --quick --lock-tables=false ...Faster MySQLDump parameters in global MySQL configuration
A better solution would be putting the same configuration straight into the MySQL server configuration. The common location for it is /etc/my.cnf. You will add the configuration values into [mysqldump] section:
[mysqldump]
skip-add-locks
single-transaction
max_allowed_packet = 1G