While a slave server might be the best solution, perhaps only backing up non-recoverable data might help. Our forum DB is about 1.1 gigabyte, but without indexes (both sql and vBulletin search index tables) it shrinks by about 400 Mb to just over 700 Mb.
Obviously rebuilding the vBulletin search index will take time though, so if you need to be back online fast, don't skip it in the backup. But rebuilding the sql indexes can be done relatively fast using myisamchk.
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