It is your host. I have the same size database on 2 seperate servers and use mysqldumper to restore both. One takes 3 minutes and the other has to continually timeout and restart so it takes forever.
If the host wasn't cheap I would move. Even using mysql ommands to import and export take forever from the ssh command line and often timeout.
Well I recommend suPHP as it is much secure than DSO.anyways DSO is better.. SuPHP is slow