Is there a faster way to get a random record from a MySQL table through ActiveRecord?

Question

In a Rails application, I'm using this to get a random row from a MySQL table:

contact = Contact.find(:all, :limit => 1, :order => 'RAND()')[0]

Even though the table only has about 20,000 rows it takes a couple seconds. Does anyone know of a faster way?

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Update

Also tried just running the SQL in the console...

SELECT * FROM `contacts` ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1

It still takes a long time, like two or three seconds.

Answer 1

I don't think my first answer will help you. Perhaps this Article will

Answer 2

Get one rand from ruby and then transform it to your primary key