mysqlhotcopy performance

[yosmc]

I'm trying to switch my backup solution from mysqldump to mysqlhotcopy, mainly because I've heard it's much faster (basically as fast as running a cp command, which is really what it is after the database was locked).

But when I tried it, I had to shoot down the script after four minutes because it still wasn't done. Later I tried the cp on the data it had copied in those four minutes (roughly 1GB), and it took like 3 seconds to duplicate. So what am I doing wrong? Is it normal that mysqlhotcopy takes so long?