Very Slow Performing MySQL Server with innodb

[A.R. Nasir Qureshi]

I have a MYISAM table, which I wanted to be converted to innodb. The command I used is:

ALTER TABLE `tracking` ENGINE = INNODB;

The size of the MYISAM Table files is:

-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 12781031392 Nov 3 22:10 tracking.MYD
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 13714211840 Nov 3 23:06 tracking.MYI
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 1179 Nov 3 13:35 tracking.TRG
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 8752 Nov 2 19:04 tracking.frm

Now it has been about 7 days since the server is working to convert the table, and it is still going on.

| 1405 | root | localhost | ocskhi | Query | 595445 | copy to tmp table | ALTER TABLE `tracking` ENGINE = INNODB |

It has added (I am not too sure) more than 60 GB to the data file.

-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 5242880 Nov 13 12:46 /usr/local/mysql/data/ib_logfile0
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 5242880 Nov 13 12:46 /usr/local/mysql/data/ib_logfile1
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 171725291520 Nov 13 12:46 /usr/local/mysql/data/ibdata1


The MySQL version is "Server version: 5.5.17 MySQL Community Server (GPL)"

The Machine details are:

From "cat /proc/cpuinfo" Total 8 cores, model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X3440 @ 2.53GHz, bogomips : 5053.12

From "free"
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4034940 4000436 34504 0 73540 3142260
-/+ buffers/cache: 784636 3250304
Swap: 0 0 0

Linux :

Linux 2.6.37.6 #3 SMP Sat Apr 9 22:49:32 CDT 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X3440 @ 2.53GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Current Load Avg:

12:48:35 up 11 days, 29 min, 1 user, load average: 1.23, 1.17, 1.22

IOStat says:

Linux 2.6.37.6 () 11/13/2011 _x86_64_ (8 CPU)

avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
0.85 0.00 0.11 10.94 0.00 88.09

Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await r_await w_await svctm %util
sda 0.11 1323.57 9.01 135.24 492.93 5835.30 87.74 4.24 29.40 11.92 30.56 5.90 85.08

Can someone tell me what is happening ? Is this supposed to be this slow ? Should I let it continue or stop and try something else ?