INNODB Full Table Scan

Full table scan is faster on MyISAM tables but it has been discourged to use with INNODB tables, the reason for which is that innodb buffer pool is not table scan resistant. A full table scan on INNODB can have the affects of evicting a large portion of the useful pages out of the INNODB buffer pool . However there are times when it is desirable to fill the buffer pool with full table scans. On other hand, if you use mysqldump to backup INNODB tables then you have experienced performance issues. Because it perfroms full table scans and thus blow out buffer pool cache.
INNOBASE has offered fix for it in innodb plugin 1.0.4

1) innodb_old_blocks_time
2) innodb_old_blocks_pct

1) Just before performing table scans and dumps to prevent eviction of a large portion of usefull pages from buffer pool. You can set this variable at runtime

mysql>SET GLOBAL innodb_old_blocks_time=1000;
.. perfrom table scans
mysql> SET GLOBAL inndob_old_blocks_time=0;


2) Similarly we can decide how much space should be available for old blocks, the default value for which is 37% (approximatley i.e. 3/8 of the pool). This behavior can be controlled with innodb_old_blocks_pct runtime variable. The value for this variable should be altered carefully, as you might have lots of unwanted old pages in buffer pool.